Day: November 15, 2019

Washington’s defense cost-sharing demand could hurt the U.S.-South Korean alliance, said a former military general, suggesting the demand seems to stem from “a new paradigm” the Trump administration has adopted.

Bernard Champoux, a retired three-star general who served as commander of the Eighth Army in South Korea during the Obama administration, said he is “concerned about the impact” the increased cost-sharing demand “will have on the alliance.”

The U.S. has been asking South Korea to pay more for keeping about 28,500 American troops in South Korea in the cost-sharing deal set to expire at the end of this year.

In the last round of negotiations for the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) held in October in Honolulu, Washington asked Seoul to pay about $5 billion for next year, an amount that is more than five times the $924 million Seoul agreed to shoulder for this year.

New cost-sharing paradigm

Champoux said the U.S. demand for the increased defense cost-sharing stems from a “new paradigm” adopted by the Trump administration.

Champoux said the increased cost-sharing demand “is not a negotiating tactic because this is the result of a new paradigm.” He continued, “It’s perhaps consistent with the way this administration has looked at the burden sharing of all our allies, to include Japan and the NATO allies.”

As a way of pushing his “American First” policy, a slogan Trump used in his presidential campaign, Trump has given a priority to U.S. national economic interests in broad-ranging foreign policy issues including trade and military alliances.

The approach had Trump declaring the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), America’s military alliance with North American and European countries, was “obsolete” and costing too much in January, only to roll back to say, “It’s no longer obsolete” in April.

For years before he entered the political arena, Trump had complained that U.S. allies did not pay the U.S. enough for bases and troops used in their defense and, earlier this year, pushed for the “Cost Plus 50” plan.

Under the plan, the U.S. could ask countries hosting American forces such as South Korea, Japan and Germany to pay five to six times as much as they currently pay or an additional 50 percent of current amounts.

“Wealthy, wealthy countries that we’re protecting are all under notice,” said Trump in January.

Trump has backed away from pushing the plan, and it is uncertain whether it will become official U.S. policy, but the idea is being played out in Washington’s defense cost-sharing negotiations with Seoul.

Mark Milley, chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the American public needs an explanation of how much it costs for U.S. forces to defend wealthy countries like South Korea and Japan. He made the remark while en route to Tokyo on Sunday. He arrived in Seoul on Wednesday and met with South Korean General Park Han-Ki for the Annual Military Committee Meeting.

“The average American looking at the forward deployed U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan asks some fundamental questions: Why are they needed there? How much does it cost? These are very rich and wealthy countries, why can’t they defend themselves?” Milley said.

He continued, “It is incumbent on us … to make sure we adequately explain how the U.S. military is a stabilizing force in Northeast Asia.”

Ahead of Milley’s trip, Randall Schriver, assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, said the U.S. allies “have to be willing to pick up a larger share of the burden, as the president has emphasized globally, not just related to South Korea.”

Champoux says Washington’s steep increase in Seoul’s burden of defense cost could impact the alliance in a way that could benefit its adversaries.

“Our adversaries would love there to be an issue or challenge that drives a wedge in the alliance,” Champoux said.

David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and current fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “Of course, Korean people are asking why should they pay more.” He continued, “We are heading for a train wreck.”

On Wednesday, North Korea, one of the adversaries considered by the U.S., expressed anger over the planned joint military drills between the U.S. and South Korea scheduled for December saying they are “hostile” to North Korea. It vowed to respond with “force in kind,” through a statement carried by its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea’s statement came as U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday while traveling to Seoul that he is open to the possibility of adjusting the joint drills to provide space for diplomacy.

In Seoul, Esper will be attending the 51st U.S.-ROK Security Consultative Meeting on Friday where he is expected to discuss with South Korea a host of important alliance issues, including the defense cost-sharing deal and an intelligence-sharing pact set to expire this month, which Seoul announced in August that it will terminate with Tokyo against the U.S. urges.

After the 44th Military Committee Meeting in Seoul on Thursday, Milley said the U.S. remains ready to use “the full range of U.S. military capabilities” to respond to “any attacks on the Korean Peninsula” according to a joint statement.

VOA Korean reporter Christy Lee contributed to this report

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The impeachment inquiry involving President Donald Trump moved into an important new phase this week — public hearings. Opposition Democrats believe Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden. They hope the hearings will sway public opinion to support their case against the president, just as Republicans are counting on an aggressive defense to move the public to oppose impeachment. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more on the political stakes in the impeachment battle from Washington.

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A boy described as bright, quiet and “normal” pulled a gun from his backpack on his 16th birthday and opened fire at his high school before saving the last bullet for himself, authorities said.

The shooting that killed two teenagers and wounded three others Thursday at Saugus High School in a Los Angeles suburb took 16 seconds and left the attacker hospitalized in critical condition with a head wound, authorities said.

Investigators searched the boy’s home as they sought a motive for the attack, which seemed to target students at random, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Captain Kent Wegener said.

Authorities said the teenager apparently acted alone. There was no indication he was affiliated with a group or ideology, said Paul Delacourt, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

Gunfire erupted about 7:30 a.m. as students were “milling around” and greeting each other in an outdoor quad area, Wegener said. Surveillance video showed the shooter standing still while “everyone is active around him.”

“He just fires from where he is. He doesn’t chase anybody. He doesn’t move,” Wegener said.

The suspect appeared to fire at whoever was in front of him. He had no known connection to those he shot, Wegener said.

Video showed the last thing the assailant did was shoot himself with the final bullet in the .45-caliber handgun, Wegener said. The weapon was empty when it was recovered.

A 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy died.

Two girls, ages 14 and 15, were each in good condition after being treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital.

A 14-year-old boy was treated and released from another hospital, authorities said.

Shauna Orandi, 16, was in her Spanish class when she heard four gunshots and a student burst into the room saying he’d seen the shooter.

“My worst nightmare actually came true,” she said. “This is it. I’m gonna die.” She was later escorted from the school and reunited with her father in a nearby park.

A sheriff’s detective and two off-duty police officers from Los Angeles and Inglewood who had dropped off children at the school ran to the shooting within moments and provided first aid, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said.

Police have not publicly identified the suspect because he’s a minor. The Associated Press determined his identity based on property records for his home and interviews with three of his friends.

The suspect lived with his mother in a modest home on a leafy street in Santa Clarita, a Los Angeles suburb of about 210,000 people known for good schools, safe streets and relatively affordable housing.

He was a smart, quiet boy who played chess and had been active in a local Boy Scout troop, acquaintances said.

A girl who knew him for years said he wasn’t bullied and had a girlfriend.

The teen’s father died two years ago. An online obituary said he loved big-game hunting. In 2015, the father had been arrested amid a domestic dispute with the boy’s mother but no charges were filed.

The Sheriff’s Department hadn’t been called to the home recently and there was no indication of “turmoil” there, Wegener said.

Saugus High has no metal detectors but it has a dozen security cameras and a fence with a limited number of gates. Security is provided by one unarmed sheriff’s deputy and nine “campus supervisors” who act as guards, said Collyn Nielson, chief administrative officer for the William S. Hart Union High School District, which canceled classes for Friday.

All district schools hold lockdown drills three times a year, including two in the fall that have already occurred, Nielson said.

“In speaking with staff and hearing reports, students reported they knew what to do and immediately went into lockdown mode,” he said.

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VOA Serbian service’s Jela de Franceschi spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about the shifting global alliances in the current political environment.

Q. Both sides of the Atlantic are undergoing political upheaval, unprecedented in a sense. We have impeachment proceedings in the U.S., the third time in modern American history, and we have Brexit in Europe, which has been a prolonged process. Does that affect larger security issues at all?

Stoltenberg: I think what we have seen is that despite issues like these over decades on both sides of the Atlantic that NATO has proven that while we come to different opinions about Brexit and different opinions about the issues in the (impeachment) hearings in the Congress, we will continue to be a strong and adaptable alliance. That has happened so many times before. These important issues will not undermine NATO.

Q. They don’t affect NATO?

Stoltenberg: As I have stated many times, it is about how to manage differences and small and big crisis — from the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the French withdrawal from the NATO military cooperation in 1966, when actually France, one of the major allies, left the military cooperation with NATO. It was also an issue when Turkey went into Cyprus in 1974, or when we had the Iraq war, some allies were in favor, some were against it.

So, these are serious issues where we have seen differences between allies, but again and again we have been able to unite around our core task to protect and defend each other based on the idea ‘one for all, all for one.’ And the reason why we do that is because this in our own national security interest; we are safer and stronger when we are together.

That is the reason why we are able to overcome these differences. I am not saying that the differences are without importance. We see them today on trade and climate change, and the situation in northeast Syria. However, again I, if we look back, I think what we can learn from history that it is possible to overcome these differences if we have the political will. Moreover, I feel that the political will is there to maintain a strong bond between North America and Europe.

Q. There is also a huge global shift that is taking place. NATO started as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, which disappeared. It had a relatively peaceful period after the Berlin Wall fell. Now we have rising powers. We have Russia, which maybe is not a power in the economic sense, but military it is. Then we have China that has declared that it wants to overcome America by 2025.  From NATO’s perspective, how would you signify this?

Stoltenberg: NATO is the most successful alliance in history for two reasons: partly because of a unity, that we have been able to unite around our own core task despite differences on many other issues. The other reason why we are the most successful ones in history is that we have been able to adapt to change when the world is changing for 40 years, we did only one thing. We deterred the Soviet Union in Europe.

Then the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended, and people started to ask do we need NATO? And they said either NATO has to go out of area, meaning to go into operations outside the NATO area, which was never done before.
So out of area, or out of business.

And what NATO did, we actually went beyond NATO territory. We went into the Balkans. We helped to end the bloodshed there.

We also did something we have never done before. We became part of the fight against international terrorism. After 9/11 we went into Afghanistan. And since then we have been participating in different missions.

Now NATO has to adapt again, partly because we see a more assertive Russia, illegally annexing Crimea, but also because we see new threats, new challenges — cyber-hybrid, but also the rise of China. We need to understand all kinds of implications of the shifting global balance of power has for our security. There are some opportunities but also some obvious challenges. China has the second largest defense budget in the world. They are modernizing their armed forces.

The recent display of many new hypersonic advanced missiles intercontinental missiles. In addition, of course we need to fully understand the consequences. So, what we are doing is this, that we once again are proving that we are adaptable, that we are able to change the way the world is changing.

Q. One thing that China also is doing is it has a combination of military and economic power. And it has also, it has a strong presence in Europe.  At a recent hearing in Congress, some experts were saying that China is building infrastructure in some countries that are defaulting on the financial, enabling China to take over the various infrastructure projects to the point that it could threaten NATO. Let’s say if they have access to European ports, they could block movement of NATO’s ships in various circumstance. Are you worried about that?

Stoltenberg: Our military operations and forces depend on civilian infrastructure, on roads, bridges, harbors, airports, cables crossing the Atlantic and telecommunications networks and so on. That is the reason why we also developed what we call resilience guidelines. And we recently updated one of them the way we call them basic requirements actually for a civilian infrastructure.

Recently we updated our basic requirements for the telecommunications to include 5G, which is one of the areas where we really are seeing big changes and where societies will be completely transformed by the move from 4G to 5G.
And that’s a way for us to make sure that we have functioning safe and secure critical infrastructure in peace, in crisis, and of course also in conflict.

Q. Is that something that NATO can influence while accepting new members like Macedonia, like Serbia in the future.

Stoltenberg: Well other countries that join NATO they have to meet their two standards. They have to have of course a safe and secure way of communications. For instance, there are requirements for civilian infrastructure and telecommunications as 5G, they also apply for new members like North Macedonia.

They do not apply for nonmembers. We cannot force nonmembers. We can ask them and again, we can advise them and zone. It is for Serbia to decide what kind of telecommunications they have and how they organize their civilian infrastructure. We welcome the fact that Serbia is a close partner. We work with Serbia. We recently had the will of our civilian preparedness exercises in Serbia. And I visited Belgrade. Met with the Serbian president. And we actually inaugurated the start of that exercise, which shows that we are working together. Serbia is a neutral country. Serbia is not aiming or striving for NATO membership. It is up to Serbia to decide.

Q. Why is it important for NATO to have open doors and take in countries, small countries, which are militarily- and security-wise not that strong and cannot contribute in a substantial manner.

Stoltenberg: Because when our neighbors are more stable, we are more secure. And, of course, when neighbors join NATO then we become even more stable and even more secure. One of the great successes of NATO is that we started with 12 countries. We had a significant increase at the end of the Cold War with 16 members of NATO. Now we are soon to be 30, almost twice as many.

Those were former countries in Eastern and Central Europe joining NATO and many of them also joining the European Union. That means that hundreds of millions of people were invited into the community of NATO. And that has helped create democracy that underpins the prosperity and peace. We see a Europe, which is more united, more at peace than Europe has probably ever been.

The normal situation in Europe was conflict, war between European countries for centuries and then another Cold War dividing totally Europe. There are problems. We have Ukraine, we have Georgia. We have all other challenges where we see instability and Russia crushing sovereignty.

But overall, what you have seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago is an enormous achievement for everyone who believes in peace, democracy, freedom because we have a much more united and much more peaceful Europe. And that’s where much because of a need to want enlargement.

Q. What is the biggest challenge that you think NATO faced during these 70 years of existence?

Stoltenberg: The greatest success is of course that NATO made it possible to end the Cold War without a shot being fired in Europe. And by doing that we created the conditions for the fall of the Berlin Wall for the unification of Germany and for the reunification of Europe.

Q. So, the Berlin Wall is the pinnacle?

Stoltenberg: It’s a symbol of the most important achievement that that after 40 years — from 1949 to 1989 — 40 years of existence we were able to prevent war, a confrontation between the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and NATO and actually contribute to the opposite, peace and reconciliation between countries in east and west of Europe.

Then there are of course, there are many other challenges. We are now living in a totally new time where we have terrorism. We have a shifting balance of power globally and we have cyber and many other things. But historically then I think that the end of the Cold War and the way it ended is NATO’s greatest achievement.

Q. What is the greatest challenge now?

Stoltenberg: The unpredictability. During the Cold War it was very clear what was the challenge. Now there are so many that are more different threats and challenges. It is hard to predict. It is hard to foresee the unforeseen. However, we have to be prepared for the unforeseen. That is the reason why we need an agile NATO ready to be able to react when a new crisis occurs.

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