{"id":48341,"date":"2018-05-03T15:54:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T15:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/05\/03\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:03:20","slug":"will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2018\/05\/03\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Will we stay or will we go? A look at removing US troops from South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mixed signals from top political leaders ahead of a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2018\/04\/30\/report-john-kelly-talked-trump-out-of-withdrawing-us-troops-from-south-korea\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Kim Jong Un<\/a> have some questioning what is the future for the 28,500 U.S. military members and their families stationed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/23\/south-korea-halts-propaganda-broadcasts-before-summit-with-north\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">South Korea<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/03\/world\/asia\/trump-troops-south-korea.html?emc=edit_th_180504&amp;nl=todaysheadlines&amp;nlid=677224140504\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a> reported Friday that Trump has ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for reducing troop numbers ahead of the talks. Sources did not indicate if those plans included a total removal of forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kim has paused his nuclear and missile tests, also placing his nuclear program up for negotiation in recent talks with South Korea. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/09\/us-official-says-north-korean-leader-ready-to-discuss-nukes\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">North Korea <\/a>has had a mixed history of at times making the removal of U.S. forces a precondition for any denuclearization and at other times saying it is willing to talk without troops leaving the peninsula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s not as though there hasn\u2019t been rumbling about this from the U.S. commander in chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2017\/05\/21\/war-with-north-korea-an-inside-look-at-how-us-troops-would-respond-worldwide\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/air-korea-1.JPG.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">War with North Korea: An inside look at how US troops would respond worldwide<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Missiles and artillery rounds arc across the 38th Parallel from North Korea into South Korea and in an instant, 64 years of a tense ceasefire ends and war erupts.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New reports indicate that Trump was talked down from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">removing the troops<\/a> ahead of the winter Olympics. Trump said in March that he would consider removing troops to get a better trade deal with South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And <a href=\"\/TEMP-LINK-TEMP\/\" data-original-title=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"selected-link\" aria-describedby=\"popover79659\">Defense Secretary James Mattis<\/a> responded to media questions about force levels last week with a somewhat vague response, interpreted by some as opening the door for a reduction in forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s part of the issues that we\u2019ll be discussing in negotiations with our allies first, and of course with North Korea,\u201d he said in response to a question about potential troop reductions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think for right now we just have to go along with the process, have the negotiations and not try to make preconditions or presumptions about how it\u2019s going to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One expert said troop removal would be \u201cdevastating\u201d both to South Korea and across the globe for U.S. allies. Another sees the troops there, at best a single combat brigade for a conventional fight, as being purely \u201csymbolic\u201d and not needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">South Korean President Moon Jae-in said this week that the U.S. forces stationed in his country are not there solely for a North Korea deterrent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-952235232.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-86127\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-952235232.jpg.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-952235232.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-952235232.jpg.jpg?resize=768,512 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un, left, and South Korea&#8217;s President Moon Jae-in, right, bid farewell April 27, 2018, during a closing ceremony of the inter-Korean summit in the truce village of Panmunjom. (Korea Summit Press Pool\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cU.S. troops in South Korea are a matter of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. It has nothing to do with signing a peace treaty,\u201d Moon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But one of his advisers previously said it would be \u201cdifficult to justify\u201d the continuing U.S. presence if a peace treaty were signed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bruce Klingner, is a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who served as a Central Intelligence Agency deputy division chief for Korea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think having U.S. military on the peninsula is the most tangible signal of U.S. resolve and commitment to our allies as possible,\u201d Klingner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/18\/us-forces-in-korea-arent-packing-up-just-yet-heres-why\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-927755548.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">US forces in Korea aren\u2019t packing up just yet. Here\u2019s why.<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Any peace deal with North Korea is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the 23,000 U.S. troops deployed on the peninsula.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even if a treaty were signed there would have to be lengthy verification processes of the North\u2019s denuclearization followed by discussions between the United States and South Korea, examining their security and any potential threat from an expansionist China, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If there were a major reduction in U.S. forces before significant changes by North Korea it would have a \u201cdevastating impact on the security situation on the peninsula,\u201d Klingner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow and military expert with Defense Priorities, disagreed, calling the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea currently unnecessary and \u201cpurely symbolic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think we should redeploy them to the United States,\u201d Davis said. \u201cIt\u2019s no actual combat power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Davis blamed the Washington foreign policy establishment, once called the \u201cBlob\u201d by then-President Barack Obama, for continued thinking that troops can\u2019t be removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf we send troops anywhere, they tend to never leave,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said U.S. forces in South Korea over previous decades made sense when the Republic of Korea\u2019s military was poorly trained, manned and equipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s no longer the strategic environment that exists at all,\u201d Davis said. \u201cSouth Korea is very capable and modern with updated military technology. They\u2019re making their own tanks. They have a state-of-the-art air force and anti-aircraft systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-846320516.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-72957\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-846320516.jpg.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-846320516.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-846320516.jpg.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-846320516.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Taurus long-range air-to-surface missile is fired from a South Korean Air Force F-15K fighter jet during an exercise on Sept. 12, 2017, in Taean-gun, South Korea. (South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, Klingner noted that South Koreans have been reluctant not only to reduce or remove U.S. troops overall but have even been concerned about the composition of forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The majority of U.S. service members in South Korea are Army personnel. Klingner said there were rumors in the early 2000s that those soldiers might be replaced by Marines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That rumor caused a stir among South Koreans, who were aware that Marines tend to be expeditionary and rotate, such as in Okinawa, while soldiers tend to get into place and stay a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the Marines\u2019 deployment cycle, \u201cit\u2019s very easy for one unit to leave and the replacement not show up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s also not as though moving nearly 30,000 troops, their families and belongings off the peninsula would happen overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When serving in Germany, Davis had to close large Army installations and move those units. He estimated it would take at least a year or more to relocate the current personnel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump said recently he would consider removing U.S. troops to get a better trade deal with South Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":86125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,12,26,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3405],"class_list":["post-48341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DRSAMWXQCFFYHKBHZONE2OEFW4","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2018\/05\/03\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Will we stay or will we go? A look at removing US troops from South Korea - Navy Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Trump said recently he would consider removing U.S. troops to get a better trade deal with South Korea.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will we stay or will we go? A look at removing US troops from South Korea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Trump said recently he would consider removing U.S. troops to get a better trade deal with South Korea.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2018\/05\/03\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Navy Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-03T15:54:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T04:03:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd South\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Todd South\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"Article\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/navytimes\\\/news\\\/your-navy\\\/2018\\\/05\\\/03\\\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\\\/#article\",\n\t            \"isPartOf\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/navytimes\\\/news\\\/your-navy\\\/2018\\\/05\\\/03\\\/will-we-stay-or-will-we-go-a-look-at-removing-us-troops-from-south-korea\\\/\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"author\": {\n\t                \"name\": \"migration\",\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/navytimes\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cc76c831bb37a926738c8391fca7a3b1\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"headline\": \"Will we stay or will we go? 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