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Former Pentagon Official Urges Expanded US Forces Korea Flexibility
Randall Schriver told a Seoul forum that greater strategic flexibility for the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea would strengthen deterrence across the Indo-Pacific. He called on the alliance to pursue the shift with urgency while citing recent shipbuilding and submarine cooperation as positive steps.
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Randall Schriver, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said Tuesday that expanded strategic flexibility for the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea would strengthen deterrence and support a more stable security environment in the Indo-Pacific.
Schriver made the remarks at a forum hosted by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. He urged the Seoul-Washington alliance to move toward the concept with a sense of urgency, describing it as a shift that would allow U.S. forces to operate beyond the Korean Peninsula.
"We can imagine what an alliance effort on technology cooperation, promotion might look like when we think about the opportunities for an agreement on strategic flexibility for the U.S. forces and what that might mean for the ability to contribute to a more stable Indo-Pacific environment, buttressed by greater force flexibility to uphold deterrence," Schriver said.
Strategic flexibility while Washington pledged to respect Seoul's position that it would not be drawn into a regional conflict against the will of the Korean people. Yonhap reported the forum remarks.
