U.S. troop realignments signal shifting priorities in Korea and beyond

 

Cha Se-hyeon
 
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo. 
 
 
The second Trump administration is preparing a sweeping realignment of U.S. forces overseas, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific. Both the forthcoming National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the ongoing Global Posture Review (GPR) suggest that U.S. troops stationed in Korea may face a significant shift in mission or structure.
 
The Pentagon plans to release the new NDS in August, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed interim guidance in March. The document identifies China as “the sole primary threat” and frames a Chinese attack on Taiwan as “the sole major scenario” guiding U.S. military planning. It signals that Washington will plan for conflict only with China, accept higher risk in other theaters given limits in manpower and resources and rely on allies — NATO, Israel, Korea, and Japan — to maintain deterrence against Russia, Iran and North Korea. The strategy aims to concentrate American military power in the Indo-Pacific through 2027, the year U.S. intelligence believes China could complete its preparations for a Taiwan operation.
 

 
In Europe, troop levels will hinge partly on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. After Russia seized Crimea in 2014, the United States boosted its forces there to about 100,000. The new posture envisions a reduction toward roughly the 2014 baseline of 63,000 or even lower. In the Middle East, U.S. forces could shrink from the current 50,000 to around 34,000, the pre–Israel-Hamas war level, with talk of pulling carrier strike groups out of the region entirely. Analysts even speculate that troop levels could fall to about 20,000, with a heavy focus on naval and air units.
 
The Pentagon intends to redirect any forces freed from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command currently oversees roughly 380,000 personnel, with 96,000 forward-deployed. Naval assets include a carrier strike group in Japan, while the Air Force maintains seven fighter squadrons in Korea and Japan. The Army deploys 20,000 soldiers in Korea, including a Stryker brigade, and the Marine Corps bases 22,500 troops in Japan, Guam and Australia.
 
Washington has already accelerated its naval and air buildup in the region. Recent moves include increasing forward-deployed attack submarines in Guam from three to five, stationing B-1 bombers and MQ-9 Reaper drones in Japan for the first time, and installing Typhon missile systems in the Philippines and Australia capable of launching SM-6 and ground-based Tomahawk missiles.
 
The future of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is now under active debate. One camp, led by Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Elbridge Colby, argues that the roughly 20,000 U.S. Army soldiers on the peninsula lack strategic flexibility, as they are oriented toward deterring North Korea. They propose reducing or even withdrawing some of these troops and dispersing them to positions better suited to defend the maritime line from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines.
 
 
Opposition is strong among most of the U.S. military leadership, members of Congress, Indo-Pacific Command, USFK itself and Japan. They stress that North Korea remains central to broader regional deterrence, especially because a Chinese move against Taiwan and a North Korean strike on the South could occur simultaneously, creating a two-front crisis. Even so, many acknowledge the need to strengthen “strategic flexibility,” as envisioned in a 2006 U.S.-Korea agreement, to allow Korean-based forces to participate in regional operations if required.
 
Analysts envision five possible paths for USFK: full withdrawal, major reduction with Army forces removed, limited reduction, role adjustment or maintaining the status quo. Among these, experts view limited reduction or role adjustment as the most likely.
 
A limited reduction scenario — though officially denied by the Pentagon — would involve cutting about 4,500 personnel, likely withdrawing the Stryker brigade. A role adjustment scenario would maintain current troop levels but replace the Stryker brigade with a more mobile light brigade or special operations unit to allow rapid deployment in regional contingencies. Depending on conditions, both measures could proceed together.
 
Another factor shaping USFK’s future is the prospect of renewed U.S.-North Korea talks. During his first term, Donald Trump floated using troop withdrawals as leverage in nuclear negotiations, notably around the 2018 Singapore summit. That plan was blocked by what insiders called the “Axis of Adults,” senior military figures who resisted sharp breaks with alliance policy. In his second term, no such moderating circle appeared to exist, and there are no signs that Trump has shifted away from his transactional approach to the alliance.
 

 
Choi Woo-sun, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, noted in a recent report, “In any upcoming negotiations, Seoul should actively highlight its strong military and economic capacity, the strategic value of its shipbuilding and defense industries, the alliance’s role in countering China, and a credible plan for moderate defense spending increases to secure U.S. commitment.”
 
As the Pentagon reorients toward a China-focused force posture, the debate over the balance between political signaling and practical deterrence in Korea will only intensify. The coming months could determine whether U.S. troops on the peninsula face a modest mission shift, a partial drawdown or the first significant structural change in decades.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.