Trump sees OPCON transition as potential path to U.S. troop withdrawal from Korea: experts

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Donald Trump seems to view an envisioned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to South Korea as a potential means of withdrawing American troops from the Korean Peninsula, U.S. experts assessed Friday.

Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made the remarks during an online discussion hosted by the Washington-based think tank on the state of the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

"It has been said, and I think said very credibly, that President Trump sees OPCON transition as a way to pull the forces from the peninsula," Cha said.

"The president is the commander in chief," he said. "There are ways that the president can do things if he is so committed to that particular task."

Cha said that even if Congress established a minimum level of U.S. troops in South Korea through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Trump could still find ways to reduce the American military presence.

"They should have no illusions that this is not the way the U.S. president thinks," he said. "He clearly sees this as a way for him to remove troops from the peninsula."

Randall Schriver, a former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, echoed Cha's view, saying Trump has long expressed a desire to reduce the U.S. military footprint in South Korea.

"I 100 percent agree that the potential for him to view OPCON transfer as a way out or a way to reduce (U.S. troops in Korea) is there," Schriver said.

Schriver expressed hope that any move toward the transfer would allow sufficient time for deliberations involving the Pentagon, military leaders and Congress over the benefits of maintaining the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

Vincent Brooks, a former commander of U.S. Forces Korea, meanwhile, expressed disappointment over South Korean Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul's earlier endorsement of an assessment that Seoul could defend itself without major difficulties even if wartime OPCON were transferred immediately.

"I was very disappointed that the South Korean minister of defense, whom I know very well, general and now Minister Kang Shin-chul, said it could happen today," Brooks said.

"Well, that's kind of true. It could if there's a political decision, but if I'm a college student, I can say I could graduate today, even if I haven't taken the requisite courses and passed the final exam," he said.

Brooks stressed that the transfer should proceed only after the allies fulfill mutually agreed conditions, rather than simply through a political decision.

Kang, then defense minister nominee, said in a written response to a parliamentary inquiry in September that he agreed with then-Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back's assessment that South Korea would have no major difficulty defending itself even if wartime OPCON were returned the following day. He, however, stressed that mutual trust in the South Korea-U.S. alliance must be guaranteed.