00:00Trump's decision to scale back military drills has also raised questions about the U.S.-South
00:05Korea alliance. One analyst says what makes the last-minute decision unusual is that Washington
00:12is linking the routine drills to Seoul's position on U.S. actions against Iran.
00:17I think this is an unprecedented move to link those two issues together because, you know,
00:23these are routine exercises, you know, and for a strong alliance has been around for 70-plus years.
00:32So, you know, this isn't a specific action that they were taking. This is, you know, the routine
00:39drill schedule. And then to say that, oh, we're going to reduce it because you didn't, you know,
00:48you didn't comply with previous requests for military action in another region. It's just
00:55not done this way. This isn't how you treat allies and especially not allies where you are invested
01:00in their security. We do have 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula for the defense of the Korean
01:06Peninsula. Town also questions the impact on military readiness, saying the exercises were
01:13designed to prepare the allies for modern conflict. It's definitely not smart.
01:19You know, because it was, I think, one of the first exercises that really does integrate a lot
01:24of the lessons that are being learned from other wars and especially the war in Ukraine,
01:29the one that North Korea has had, you know, hands-on experience with. And especially, you know,
01:34looking at the different ways in which a war could be fought now and the multi-domain aspects of it.
01:41I think, you know, this was really the first cycle where we started to see some of these multi-domain
01:46exercises and some of these contingency exercises to really play out in a way of like, if something
01:52happened here, multiple different ways in which it could happen. And how ready are we for that?
02:00And really trying to understand our own vulnerabilities in that process. So, you know,
02:05I do think it was a really hasty decision that that will have consequences for alliance readiness.
02:15There may be also a diplomatic calculation behind Trump's decision to scale back military drills with
02:21South Korea. You know, it's very clear that Donald Trump has wanted to meet with Kim Jong-un ever since
02:29he came back in this second term. He's put out several feelers already, you know, asking for the
02:36resumption of negotiations. The way that he framed this particular move could suggest that he is trying
02:45to create a diplomatic opportunity using the delay or the reduction of these military exercises as a way
02:54to signal that intent. Although the way that he's done it, of course, is so haphazard, it is unlikely to
03:02have
03:02the kind of impact that he may have wanted it to have, and especially outside of the context of actual
03:08negotiations ongoing anyway.
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