The Pentagon foresees a “more limited” role in deterring North Korea, with South Korea taking primary responsibility for the task, a Pentagon policy document released on Friday said, a move likely to raise concern in Seoul.
South Korea hosts about 28,500 US troops in combined defence against North Korea’s military threat and Seoul has raised its defence budget by 7.5 per cent for this year.
“South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited US support,” the National Defence Strategy, a document that guides the Pentagon’s policies, said.
“This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating US force posture on the Korean peninsula,” the document added.
In recent years, some US officials have signalled a desire to make American forces in South Korea more flexible to potentially operate outside the Korean peninsula in response to a broader range of threats, such as defending Taiwan and checking China’s growing military reach.
South Korea has resisted the idea of shifting the role of US troops, but has worked to grow its defence capabilities in the past 20 years, with the goal of being able to take on a wartime command of the combined US-South Korean forces. South Korea has 450,000 troops.
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