President Park may be giving us all a lesson in how to deal with north Korea that we should all know by now.  You have to be tough and you cannot back down.  And do not be afraid to call the north's bluff.  The north has much more to lose in every scenario.  I also think her "paradoxical" trustpolitik policy provides the foundation from which to operate because it allows her to engage with the north because she is able to deal from a position a military strength (as long as the ROK/US Alliance holds).

V/R

Dave

North Korea blinks minutes after South threatens closure of factory park

6:13am EDT

By Jack Kim

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-korea-north-idUSBRE9760BO20130807

SEOUL (Reuters) - Impoverished North Korea said on Wednesday it was reopening the troubled Kaesong industrial zone jointly run with the wealthy South just minutes after Seoul signalled its willingness to let it close for good.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles Pyongyang's ties with Seoul, proposed talks aimed at normalising the project and said the safety of South Koreans visiting the factory park would be guaranteed.

The committee was "prompted by its desire to bring about a new phase of reconciliation, cooperation, peace, reunification and prosperity by normalizing operation in the Kaesong zone", it said in unusually conciliatory remarks.

The comments were carried by the North's official KCNA news agency about 90 minutes after South Korea announced steps to compensate its firms that operate factories in Kaesong for losses - a step widely seen as a move towards shutting down the rivals' last symbol of cooperation.

Reclusive North Korea, for which Kaesong has been a rare source of hard currency, and the South, one of the richest countries in the world, are technically still at war as their 1950-53 civil conflict ended not in a treaty but in a mere truce.

The decision to pay 109 South Korean small and medium-sized manufacturers from a government insurance fund came after the North went for 10 days without responding to what Seoul said was its "final offer" for talks aimed at reopening the project.

South Korea had said it would not wait forever.

The South welcomed the North's change of heart and accepted the proposal for talks to be held on August 14 in Kaesong.

"We hope that a rational solution can be found ... for the normalisation of the Kaesong industrial zone," South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-korea-north-idUSBRE9760BO20130807

A Test of Responsibility in Korea: Seoul now wants the U.S. to retain military command on the peninsula.

We may be at a key turning point in the Alliance.  I do not think we are really grasping the issue in these two paragraphs.

There is also concern in Seoul that if the U.S. hands off operational control of South Korean troops, it may be tempted to dial back its overall security commitment. This is one reason many South Koreans (including 16 former defense ministers) have opposed OpCon transfer from the moment then-President Roh Moo Hyun proposed it in 2006.

This concern has become more acute as current U.S. foreign policy projects weakness around the world. Washington boasts of a "pivot" to Asia yet has cut the defense budget, shrunk the Navy and Air Force, and abandoned its strategy of being able to fight two wars simultaneously. America promises "extended deterrence" to South Korea, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella and missile defenses. Yet in April, as North Korea threatened to test more missiles, Secretary of State John Kerry offered to cut U.S. missile defenses in the region if China reined in Pyongyang.

We should remember that in all the alliance strategic planning documents we have recognized that the alliance is the friendly center of gravity.  This is more than rhetoric to our ROK allies.  They truly believe it (as do I).

While some Americans will belittle the ROK and say its time for them to stand on their own two feet or they have now have the economic power to be independent in defense I think we need to really pay attention to what the ROK is saying.  I actually think that some senior Korean officials may actually be doing some very mature risk analysis and weighing their national security interests.  I think they are willing to field the criticism that they are "afraid" to let go of the hand of the American big brother in the face of the bully from the north.  I do not think they are afraid at all and I think they know they could stand on their own two feet and fight and win.  But they are calculating their own long term strategic interests and they know that they are better served with the US as an ally and they are willing to eat humble pie to ensure the strength of the Alliance because they do fear that if we (the US) continue down this fiscal path combined with US domestic politics that the US military commitment to the ROK continue to decline.   The ROK knows that it has since 1978 when President Carter wanted to remove all US forces and every President, Republican or Democrat, since has either removed or altered some forces (even if for sound military or strategic reasons), removed nuclear weapons, removed US forces from patrolling the DMZ, and now is willing to dissolve the Combined Forces Command.  Taken as a whole over time the picture that is painted is one of declining commitment and now the ROK may have decided that it cannot allow for any further erosion of the alliance.  It may have calculated that the only way to ensure commitment from the US is to leave the Combined Forces Command (CFC) intact with an American commander.

There is an opportunity here at this turning point and with this alliance friction.  We do have the opportunity to move beyond the big brother-little brother relationship (and such US rhetoric as the only way we are going to make the ROK be fully responsible is by forcing the ROK to do more for themselves and to dissolve the Combined Forces Command so that the ROK will no longer be dependent on the US).  What we really have the opportunity to do is to assess the alliance interests and determine our mutual interests and the best way to organize the military instrument of power to support achieving those interests.  The proposal for a Combined Theater Command (CTC) with a Korean General in charge has been floated and may be the best way for the alliance to evolve.  However, the question is while the ROK is maturely looking at its strategic interested and is willing to be chastised as immature for wanting CFC to remain with a US general in charge, is the US mature enough to allow a transition to a CTC with a Korean general in command?  (we need to keep in mind the true command relationships exercised through the Military Committee – we also remember the well written and wise words of article II of the ROK/US Mutual Defense Treaty as well.  Now is the time for the most effective mutual consultation and agreement in 60 years on how best to organize the military forces of both nations to deter armed attack and to further the purposes of the Treaty.

“The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of either of them, the political independence or security of either of the Parties is threatened by external armed attack. Separately and jointly, by self help and mutual aid, the Parties will maintain and develop appropriate means to deter armed attack and will take suitable measures in consultation and agreement to implement this Treaty and to further its purposes.”

V/R

Dave

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• REVIEW & OUTLOOK ASIA
• Updated August 5, 2013, 6:35 p.m. ET

A Test of Responsibility in Korea

Seoul now wants the U.S. to retain military command on the peninsula.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324635904578640981437025750.html#printMode

Add South Korea to the list of countries where the tide of war is not receding. Citing growing threats from the North, nervous officials in Seoul have asked Washington to delay a planned transfer of wartime military command from U.S. to South Korean forces. Seoul's request is another reminder that the world is dangerous and America is the main check against global rogues.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries have been intertwined since the Korean War, when America commanded a coalition under the United Nations flag. South Korea's military remained under U.S. command after the war but became more independent as the country grew into a prosperous democracy.

In 1994 Seoul regained command of its own troops in peacetime, and in 2006 South Korea and the U.S. agreed that Seoul would also assume command of its own troops in a war. This transfer of so-called operational control is set for December 2015, but Seoul has now asked Washington for an indefinite delay.

U.S. and South Korean Marines run out from the South Korea LVT-7 during the joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States called Ssangyong 2013 as a part of annual Foal Eagle military exercises in Pohang, south of Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 26, 2013.

The two sides have already delayed "OpCon" transfer once before, in 2010, after North Korea torpedoed a South Korean ship, killing 46 sailors. The North has since shelled a South Korean island, launched long-range missiles, tested a third nuclear device, and repeatedly threatened war against South Korea and the U.S. homeland. Amid these threats, it is little surprise that Seoul would rather not shake up the long-time military command.

There is also concern in Seoul that if the U.S. hands off operational control of South Korean troops, it may be tempted to dial back its overall security commitment. This is one reason many South Koreans (including 16 former defense ministers) have opposed OpCon transfer from the moment then-President Roh Moo Hyun proposed it in 2006.

This concern has become more acute as current U.S. foreign policy projects weakness around the world. Washington boasts of a "pivot" to Asia yet has cut the defense budget, shrunk the Navy and Air Force, and abandoned its strategy of being able to fight two wars simultaneously. America promises "extended deterrence" to South Korea, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella and missile defenses. Yet in April, as North Korea threatened to test more missiles, Secretary of State John Kerry offered to cut U.S. missile defenses in the region if China reined in Pyongyang.

Such behavior doesn't reassure American friends in Seoul, Tokyo and other capitals. Already some South Korean lawmakers are calling for Seoul to develop nuclear weapons, a move supported by 66% of the public in a recent poll. Nuclear proliferation is less likely if Washington agrees to delay or shelve OpCon transfer.

(Continued at the link below)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324635904578640981437025750.html#printMode

Or instead of a counterterrorism approach we could assess that our enemies are conducting a sophisticated global unconventional warfare strategy of which terrorist attacks are one visible manifestation of the strategy and therefore rather than counterterrorism we need to consider developing a counter-conventional warfare strategy.

The inability to grasp the gathering threat from al-Qaeda prior to Sept. 11 was deemed a failure of imagination.Given the globalized nature of terrorism and the ability of transnational terrorist, militant and criminal groups to collaborate and morph, we are now at risk of failing to imagine how the terrorist threat may be changing — well beyond the exclusive al-Qaeda prism.

…

We therefore cannot assume that the terrorist threat to the United States will manifest itself as it has in the past. Identifying threatening groups or cells will be difficult — as seen in Benghazi. Distinguishing between terrorism, local militancy and criminality will grow more challenging — as seen in West Africa. Predicting which affiliates or groups present an imminent threat to the United States may become a nearly impossible task — as seen in Yemen.

…

The debate around the Authorization for Use of Military Force should address how we define the enemy and preserve the ability to fight whatever emerges from this cauldron of conflict. Just as President Obama was given the tools and strategies needed to fight al-Qaeda — and amplified many of them — his administration must continue to ensure that the country can adapt to looming threats.

Now is the time to shape a counterterrorism approach that is not simply reacting to battles of the past but preparing for the tide of threats that may reach our shores. The fight against the al-Qaeda core may be coming to an end, but we can’t blind ourselves to the terrorist adaptations already underway.

V/R

Dave

Terrorism’s shifting face

By Juan Zarate and and Thomas Sanderson, Published: August 5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/terrorisms-shifting-face/2013/08/05/e610e486-fde3-11e2-96a8-d3b921c0924a_print.html

Juan Zarate is a former deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism. Thomas Sanderson is the co-director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The new threat warnings of an al-Qaeda-driven plot in the Middle East and North Africa have reminded Americans that the terrorist threat persists even though Osama bin Laden is dead and the core of al-Qaeda is decimated. They are also a timely wake-up call to the broader terrorist threat now entrenched throughout an “arc of instability” — from South Asia to West Africa, where our diplomatic posts have been closed because of the reported threats — that we can’t ignore.

The inability to grasp the gathering threat from al-Qaeda prior to Sept. 11 was deemed a failure of imagination. Given the globalized nature of terrorism and the ability of transnational terrorist, militant and criminal groups to collaborate and morph, we are now at risk of failing to imagine how the terrorist threat may be changing — well beyond the exclusive al-Qaeda prism.

The U.S. government has been surprised by terrorist adaptations including al-Qaeda affiliates and fellow extremist group plots aimed at an airliner flying over Detroit; New York’s Times Square; andMumbai, India , where an American helped planned the 2008 attacks. Even the fact that the Boston Marathon attackers gained ideological grounding from the violent extremism in the Caucasus seemed to have caught officials and the public off guard.

Though the al-Qaeda core has been decimated, its regional affiliates have adapted — embedding themselves in local insurgencies such as al-Shabab in Somalia; supporting operations between groups, such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram in Nigeria; and engaging in criminality, including smuggling, drug trafficking, bank robberies and kidnapping in the Maghreb, Iraq, Southeast and Central Asia.

Militant groups in this arc of instability exploit havens where weak or corrupt governments have neither the will nor the capacity to constrain their reach. Our recent fieldwork in South and Central Asia — including in Afghanistan and Pakistan — reveals a patchwork of violent extremist groups, fractured yet adapting to wage international plots after years of U.S. counterinsurgency operations. They are waiting for the withdrawal of U.S. troops to energize a narrative of defeat of the world’s remaining superpower — equating 2014 to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Meanwhile, the Internet amplifies terrorist ideologies and messages for a global jihadi community.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/terrorisms-shifting-face/2013/08/05/e610e486-fde3-11e2-96a8-d3b921c0924a_print.html

Al Qaeda's Uncertain Future by Bruce Hoffman

Perhaps a timely look at Al Qaeda given recent events.  He takes to task those who have predicted the demise of AQ and of course he was saying so long before recent events (not this article as written months ago). The abstract is below and the full text can be accessed at the link.  Also you can download the PDF version from this link:   http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1057610X.2013.802973 or from my drop box at this link: http://db.tt/4PYM5toW

(Full disclosure: Bruce is my boss) 
V/R
Dave

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

Volume 36, Issue 8, 2013

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2013.802973#.UgADVWTTUYc

Al Qaeda's Uncertain Future

DOI:

10.1080/1057610X.2013.802973

Bruce Hoffman^a*

pages 635-653

Publishing models and article dates explained
Received: 29 Jan 2013
Accepted: 31 Mar 2013
Accepted author version posted online: 14 Jun 2013
Published online: 17 Jul 2013

Article Views: 299

Abstract

This article considers the current state of the Al Qaeda terrorist movement and its likely future trajectory. It considers the principle assumptions both today and in the past about Al Qaeda and how they affect our understanding of the movement and the threat that it poses; Al Qaeda's current capacity for violence; and its ability to plan strategically and implement terrorist operations. The article further identifies nine key change drivers that will likely determine Al Qaeda's fate in the years to come before concluding that, even while the core Al Qaeda group may be in decline, Al Qaeda-ism, the movement's ideology, continues to resonate and attract new adherents. In sum, it argues that Al Qaeda remains an appealing brand most recently and most especially to extremist groups in North and West Africa and the Levant.

It may be 1978 coming true after all this time.  Former President Carter (and Secretary Rumsfeld) may finally get his wish.

And it is not just the South Koreans who "argue" this (I certainly agree with the idea):

Nonetheless, the South Koreans argued that disbanding the CFC and turning over operational control (OPCON in military lingo) might be misread by North Korean leaders and tempt them into assaulting the south. The continued presence of U.S. forces, they asserted, was needed to deter North Korea from miscalculating.

This whole OPCON transfer charade has been playing into the hands of the Kim Family Regime's strategy of splitting the ROK/US Alliance.  We really need to conduct some strategic analysis and keep in mind the strategic direction that both Presidents have given to the alliance, namely unification of the peninsula as the end state.  We should first understand the full range of the threat (from provocation to conventional war, nuclear threat to regime instability and collapse and the potential for irregular warfare) and then determine how to optimally organize the combined military forces to achieve the alliance end state across the spectrum of potential conflict.  I would submit that the optimal way is not to disband the Combined Forces Command but may in fact be the establishment of a new Combined Theater Command with a Korean General Officer in command.

V/R
Dave

The Rising East: Are U.S. Forces Ready To Come Home from South Korea?

By Richard Halloran08/05/2013

http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2013/08/05/19627-the-rising-east-are-us-forces-ready-to-come-home-from-south-korea/

Flickr: U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea

In a meeting between South Korea and U.S. defense officials in Seoul last week, the Koreans urged the Americans: “Please, Yankee, don’t go home.”

The Americans in effect responded: “Sorry, we’re outta here.”

At issue in the Korea-US Integrated Defense Dialogue was the fate of the Combined Forces Command (CFC), the joint Korean and American staff that controls both Korean troops and U.S. forces posted in Korea. It is commanded by an American general with a Korean general as deputy.

During the discussion in the forum with the unfortunate acronym KIDD, the Americans contended that the CFC should be dismantled, with Koreans taking full responsibility for their own defense. The Koreans argued that they are not ready to take over and thus the CFC should remain intact. No decision was made public

Behind this debate was an intrinsically different assessment of the need for American troops to the defense of South Korea against the threat from North Korea.

The Americans point out that the Korean War, which brought legions of U.S. troops to Korea fight the North Koreans and Chinese, ended 60 years ago. Today, those U.S. forces are needed elsewhere in a time of economic difficulty at home and heavy constraints on military spending.

Moreover, in those 60 years South Korea has generated an economic great leap forward, established itself politically as a stable democracy, and forged a first-class military force. It needs very little outside help.

In contrast, North Korea is an economic basket case in which the gap between the capital in Pyongyang and the rest of the country is widening. Corruption is pervasive, millions of people suffer from chronic food shortages, and the inexperienced regime of Kim Jong Un has an uncertain grip on power.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2013/08/05/19627-the-rising-east-are-us-forces-ready-to-come-home-from-south-korea/

North Korea, a Land of Human Achievement, Love and Joy

I know no one will be able to make it through this entire propaganda piece without either spewing coffee on their computer screen or hitting the delete key so let me just highlight the very worst excerpts.  (on the other hand the propagandist author does provide some interesting views of north Korea that may be of interest).

It was all a big mess, and a never-ending drama. A divided nation; millions of deaths. I saw it all in the city of Sinchon. The tunnels where the US troops massacred thousands of civilians during the war, old veterans and survivors of the massacres spoke; recalling those gruesome events.

In 1950, at the beginning of the war, the city of Sinch’ŏn was the site of a massacre of civilians by occupying U.S forces. The number of civilians killed over the 52-day period was allegedly over 35,000 people, the equivalent of a quarter of the city’s population at the time.

It all looked chillingly familiar. I used to photograph the craters left behind after the carpet bombings of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Brutality, brutality, brutality… Millions of faceless victims burned alive by napalm, ‘bomb-lets’ that explode decades later when children or water buffaloes are playing on the fields.

Ramsey Clark spoke about the horrors of the past, and about the brutality of the US actions. An old man, one of the survivors of the mass killings of civilians in the tunnels, spoke about horrors he witnessed as a child. The artwork in the local museum depicted the brutal torture and rape of Korean women by US troops, their bodies mutilated; with nipples penetrated by metal hooks.

And just for the record I do not consider the north Korean people as heartless, plastic androids.  I know full well that responsibility for the failed economy, the starving north Korean people, the tens of thousands of north Koreans being worked to death in the gulags, and those who are publicly executed for trying to escape the horror of the regime lies squarely on the shoulders of the Kim Family Regime.  I empathize and sympathize with the north Korean people and I am completely committed to preparing for the end of the Kim Family Regime so that unification can be achieved and all Korean people can live and thrive freely and in peace.

Then on July 26 I met, together with Ramsey Clark and few other delegates, Mr.Yang Hyong Sob, the Vice President of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Committee. He looked like a very kind man, and I was given a chance to exchange some ideas with him. I explained that the best way to combat Western propaganda is to show to the world the faces of North Korean people.

“It is their common tactic”, I said. “They portray people of China, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, as heartless, as if they were some plastic androids. Then, subconsciously, compassion for the people of those nations vanishes from the hearts of the Western public.Suddenly it is fine to starve them, to bomb them, to murder thousands, even millions of those androids. But once the faces are shown, the Western public gets confused; many refuse to support mass murder.“

V/R
Dave 

North Korea, a Land of Human Achievement, Love and Joy

North Korea Celebrates 60th Anniversary of Victory

http://www.globalresearch.ca/north-korea-a-land-of-human-achievement-love-and-joy/5344960

By Andre Vltchek

Global Research, August 04, 2013

Dissident Voice

Region: Asia

In-depth Report: NORTH KOREA

As the plane – Russian-built Tupolev-204 – was taking off from Pyongyang Airport, I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. The morning fog was at first covering the runway, and then it began to lift. The engines roared. Right after the takeoff I could clearly distinguish green fields, neat villages and ribbons of ample and lazy rivers below the wing. It was undeniably a beautiful sight: melancholic, poetic, and truly dramatic. And yet I felt numb. I was feeling nothing, absolutely nothing.

Overhead monitors were beaming endless images of one parade after another, of endless celebrations and bombastic concerts. The volume was up, women and men on the screen were singing enthusiastically, soldiers were marching; roaring jets and helicopters were penetrating the blue sky. The conductor was waving his hands. The standing crowd was applauding. Emotions were brought to an absolute extreme; watering the eyes of the people, and omnipresent pride on their faces.

Suddenly I felt empty, scared of something.

After seeing more than 150 countries, all over the world, after covering wars and conflicts, some of unimaginable intensity and brutality, I was suddenly longing for some rest, even for total silence.

60 years ago North Korea won the war. But some 4 million people died many of them, civilians. Maybe it was more than 4 million, nobody knows exactly. The capital city Pyongyang was totally leveled to the ground. I did not want to hear loud music and long speeches. I wanted to pay tribute to those who lost their lives, by sitting quietly by the river covered by mist, listening to the tall grass. But during my 8 days in North Korea, I had very few moments of silence, almost no opportunity to reflect.

What have I seen in those 8 days in DPRK – in North Korea? I saw an enormous futuristic city, Pyongyang, the capital, built from the ashes. I saw enormous theatres and stadiums, a metro system deep below the ground (public transportation doubling as nuclear shelter, in case the city came under attack). I saw trolley buses and double-decker buses, wide avenues, unimaginably ample sidewalks, roller-skating rinks and playgrounds for children.

Statues and monuments were everywhere. The size of some boulevards and buildings were simply overwhelming. For more than a decade I lived in Manhattan, but this was very different grandeur. New York was growing towards the sky, while Pyongyang consisted of tremendous open spaces and massive eclectic buildings.

Outside the capital I saw green fields, and farmers walking home deep in the countryside. Clearly, there was no malnutrition among children, and despite the embargo, everyone was decently dressed.

I saw packed squares, with tens of thousands of people shouting slogans from the top of their lungs. I saw thousands of women in colorful traditional dresses waving their flags and ribbons, cheering when the command was given, welcoming us – international delegates. Marching next to me for peace, was a former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, and at my other side, the leader of one of the Indian Communist Parties. There were human rights lawyers from the United States and from all over the world, Turkish revolutionaries, and, for hard to understand reasons, several heads of the Ugandan military.

But I did not come here to march. I came here to film and to photograph, to see the faces of local people, to read what was written on those faces, to feel, to sense, and to try to understand.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/north-korea-a-land-of-human-achievement-love-and-joy/5344960

I fully concur with the General.  This is one reason why I believe that if we do have to move them South or if we shift to rotational forces, we need to return to the mission of US forces patrolling the DMZ (not in a US sector but fully integrated throughout the DMZ with ROK forces).  Giving up that mission back in the 1990's was a mistake.

We should also note that it is going to be very hard for 2ID forces to train at Camp Humphreys.  They will have to travel from Pyongtaek back up to the Tongduchon area and beyond to go to their training areas.  It will obviously be more expensive to train.

And then there is deterrence to consider.  The move of US forces South and the OPCON transfer (mean the dissolution of the Combined Forces Command) gives a perception of the weakening of the US military commitment to the alliance.

I am very gratified to read that the General states the blunt truth.  I hope we can take a holistic view of the Alliance strategy and properly organize our combined military forces sos that we can support achieving the strategic objectives that our two Presidents have established (from deterrence all the way to unification).  It is my opinion that the current plans of both OPCON transfer and moving 2ID south do not contribute to achieving them.

(I also now feel old when I read that the division commander is younger than me - I still think of myself as a young captain on the DMZ when then MG Luck was the division commander!)

V/R

Dave

'Base relocation likely to affect 2ID mission' http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/08/116_140322.html Maj. Gen. Thomas Vandal, commander of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, speaks during a recent interview. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul New commander proud of 2ID tradition By Kang Seung-woo CAMP RED CLOUD, Uijeongbu ― The new commander of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) says that moving the main component of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to Pyeongtaek could impact on deterrence against North Korea. “So, would you assess that location and movement down to Camp Humphreys has a mission impact?” Maj. Gen. Thomas Vandal asked rhetorically during a recent interview. “Yes, our understanding is it would and so we conveyed to our headquarters those concerns," he said. “But I fully support any decision made by our higher headquarters regarding the relocation plan.” Rarely has a senior U.S. military officer in Korea made public such worries about the relocation of U.S. military units further southward, especially when the relocation is well under way as part of a ROK-U.S. agreement. The division is scheduled to move to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province by 2016 under the Land Partnership Plan (LPP), signed in 2002. Vandal said that the two governments are working together and he is sure that a good resolution will be found. He didn’t reveal whether the bilateral consultations have anything to do with a request by the Korean government to delay the plan to regain wartime operational control (OPCON) of ROK forces. The U.S. base relocation is being pushed as part of the OPCON transfer plan. In reply, the U.S. first rejected Korea’s call for a delay but now reports have it that the two sides will continue to work on the request. The 53-year-old, who took command on June 24, said that 2ID, whose motto is “Second to None,” has “such a great lineage,” that it makes him feel proud. “The 2ID has the most Medal of Honor winners of any U.S. Army division in history and the most Medal of Honor winners in the Korean War and World War I,” said the native of Rhode Island. (Continued at the link below) http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/08/116_140322.html