USFK commander says U.S. commitment to Korea 'ironclad'

Gen. Paul LaCamera said it is essential that South Korean and U.S. forces continue joint training to maintain readiness "for any threat that may evolve" during an unprecedented media tour of CP Tango.

Gen. Paul LaCamera leads a media tour of Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations on Saturday. [JUN MIN-KYU]

Gen. Paul LaCamera said it is essential that South Korean and U.S. forces continue joint training to maintain readiness "for any threat that may evolve" during an unprecedented media tour of Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations Center (CP Tango).

LaCamera, who simultaneously serves as the commander of United States Forces Korea (USFK), the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the United Nations Command (UNC), emphasized that the U.S. commitment to South Korea’s security is “ironclad” during the tour on Saturday, the sixth day of the largest-scale iteration of the allies’ annual Freedom Shield joint exercise.

The general said the allies have undertaken a “holistic” approach to maintaining their readiness through this year’s exercise, which is primarily computer-simulated but also incorporates live field maneuvers for soldiers to “understand the science” underlying the drills.

The following is an edited transcript of the media interview with LaCamera.

Q. What is the focal point of this year’s Freedom Shield exercise, considering the evolving threat from North Korea? Have scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons been incorporated into the exercise after meetings of the South Korea-U.S. Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG)?

A. I'm not going to get into the specifics of different scenarios, but we are watching what’s going on around the world. We’re also looking at all of the different threats to the peace and stability of South Korea. Like all of our exercises, this exercise is defensive in nature, and it involves forces from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as different government players, whom we role-play.

I wear three hats as chief of the UNC, CFC and USFK. We are a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Our job is to buy time and space for decision makers. The UNC focuses on maintaining the armistice, which includes reacting to crises in a way that allows our diplomats and political leaders to work out a diplomatic solution.

I have the added benefit of being the director of Freedom Shield, so I can advocate for necessary changes as the exercise progresses so that we can get better each day.

In response to North Korea’s escalation of rhetorical and weapons-based provocations since the end of last year, South Korean government officials have said that they intend to confront “strength with strength” through hawkish countermeasures. How do you assess the current situation, and how would you like to manage it?

Our focus is on maintaining peace through strength. Our inherent right to self-defense never goes away. If we’re threatened, our service members need to be trained to react properly. I think the greatest crime that commanders can commit is to throw untrained service members into harm’s way.

To that end, a lot of the focus in these exercises is training how to think, not what to think. That means our service members need to be able to quickly assess the situation at hand and make a decision on the spot, which is what President Yoon Suk Yeol and Defense Minister Shin Won-sik mean when they say the armed forces should react first and report later. Our job as commanders is to make sure our forces are trained and ready to do just that.

We train across all domains every single day. That’s not provocative. It is about readiness, which is perishable. We have to be ready for any threat that may evolve. We’re watching what's going on around the world and taking those lessons and seeing how they could potentially apply to what we’re doing here on the peninsula.

The Freedom Shield exercise has more than doubled in scale compared to 2021. What are the reasons for this change?

I can’t really talk about my time before coming here, but I will say that I’ll never be satisfied with the level of training. Given the turnover of forces from South Korea, United States and United Nations Command member states that send people here, training needs to be continuous.

This exercise is predominantly virtual, which means that it’s computer-simulated. But we’ve added additional live portions to that because the digital world only gives us part of the battlefield geometry. Military maneuvers take place very quickly in the game, but soldiers need to understand the physics that those decisions really entail.

The lifting of Covid restrictions has allowed us to do more live drills, and now we’re really trying to link these maneuvers with decision-making processes so that commanders can get a good feel for how it will play out in real life. We’re taking a holistic approach to readiness that’s not based on just a computer simulation.

Development in Korea is a double-edged sword as it restricts and shrinks some of our training areas, so it’s always important to move from pen-and-paper planning and train under up-to-date conditions here.

As North Korea’s nuclear weapons delivery capabilities have advanced, there are more voices in South Korea calling for the country to develop its own independent nuclear deterrent. How would you respond to South Korean doubts about whether the United States would sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul?

The U.S. commitment to South Korea is ironclad. That the Republic of Korea sits underneath the nuclear umbrella of the United States is a fact that has been stated by our president, our secretary of defense and myself. We have a mutual defense treaty. The NCG, the Washington Declaration and our official working groups are all advancing and strengthening security cooperation between our countries. I think those are pieces of this partnership that a lot of people don’t quite understand.

After Hamas launched its attack on Israel, people here are worried that North Korea might attack South Korea in a similar way, especially now that the United States has to simultaneously manage conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and potentially even Taiwan. How would you respond to concerns that USFK might be diverted to other areas and prevented from focusing on what’s happening on the peninsula?

I can assure you that we’re not distracted by events elsewhere. Readiness is something we’re constantly keeping an eye on. We monitor the situation here and we make sure that we have enough combat power trained and ready on the peninsula at all times. USFK’s mission is to support the alliance and honor our mutual defense treaty, and its focus is on the defense of the Republic of Korea. We do engage in multilateral training opportunities to build readiness and interoperability with other likeminded countries, as do South Korean soldiers. The important thing to remember is that the United States can do more than one thing. Our combat forces are here, and we are committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea.

Many military strategists are a bit surprised at how the situations in Ukraine and Gaza have unfolded. You mentioned that you're looking at the world to take in lessons. What lessons from the last couple of years are you adapting to make sure that South Korea, the United States and their allies are better prepared?

The threat from deception [by North Korea] is real, so we know we have to pay attention to it. The good news is that we don't have to fabricate an adversary. We have an adversary with capabilities that are growing with the help of others. I’ve challenged our folks back home and here that we cannot fail due to a failure of imagination.

North Korea appears to have made many advances in its nuclear weapons program over the years. From your perspective, what adaptations are required to face the long list of items that they’ve developed or are currently pursuing?

How does a country try to break up a coalition of nations? It would attack each one to try and get them all to stay out of a fight. North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles are intended to threaten the United States. The mid-range missiles are a signal to Japan. The short-range missiles and others are aimed at South Korea.

In the past, the challenge was to prevent North Korea from developing its offensive capabilities. Now it’s not only to deter Pyongyang from using these weapons, but also to reassure the South Korean people. The challenge here is to decide how much we should reveal and how much we should conceal. How do we reassure the South Korean people without exposing too much of our capabilities and providing feedback to our adversaries? We also have to assure Kim Jong-un that positive actions will be met with positive actions, and also that negative actions will be met with a negative response.

Kim Jong-un has called his people to be prepared to go to war. Some assert that North Korea has already made a decision to go to war. I’m curious about your personal assessment of the level of risk of a military conflict or skirmish as of today.

I focus on capabilities, not intent. If I could read minds, I would be in a different business.

That being said, we manage the risk of conflict by building and maintaining combat readiness. That’s why training is always so important. We can come up with great plans, but we have to be able to execute those plans.

At the same time, we have to maintain a balance between reassuring the South Korean people without tipping our hand and showing which capabilities we have and don’t have.

BY LEE CHUL-JAE, MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]