Pentagon eyes expanded role for South Korea-based US forces to help deter China

The Pentagon has signalled a shift for US forces in South Korea, pushing them to expand their role beyond North Korea to help deter Beijing in the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in the region, according to experts.

The analysis follows a visit to South Korea this week by Elbridge Colby, the US undersecretary of defence for policy and a key architect of the Pentagon’s National Defence Strategy. In his first trip outside the United States since taking office in April, Colby hinted at a possible restructuring of forces on the Korean peninsula to focus on the “first island chain”.

During his stops in South Korea and Japan, Colby met senior foreign affairs and defence officials.

Speaking at the South Korean think tank Sejong Institute on Monday, Colby said that Washington under the administration of US President Donald Trump “does not seek to dominate China, nor do we seek to strangle or humiliate it”.

In the speech, his first as undersecretary, he called for a “favourable balance of power in which no state can impose its hegemony”.

Colby went on to link the US military presence on the Korean peninsula to its island chain strategy.

The first island chain refers to a string of islands and archipelagos running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines and the South China Sea. The Korean peninsula is not part of the first island chain.

South China Morning Post