INTERVIEW — GEN. JACK KEANE – retired 4 star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, the chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst. @gen_jackkeane – discussed North Korea.
- Trump weighs barring U.S.military in South Korea from bringing families. (NBC News) – WASHINGTON — Soon U.S. service members deploying to South Korea may not be allowed to bring their families with them. Top Pentagon officials are considering changing the policy that allows service men and women to deploy on accompanied tours to the Korean Peninsula, according to three U.S. defense officials. An accompanied tour is when a service member’s family can accompany them, traveling at the military’s expense. In a statement, the Pentagon said that no change in policy is imminent. “The U.S. Department of Defense currently has no plans in place to modify the policy authorizing U.S. military dependents to to accompany service members on orders to, or currently stationed in, the Republic of Korea,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Rob Manning. The idea of making all tours in Korea unaccompanied is not new, but gained new traction when President Donald Trump saw retired Gen. Jack Keane comment about the issue on FOX News, arguing the Pentagon should stop sending families there to allow the troops to prepare for possible war with North Korea, according to two U.S. officials.
- President punts on North Korea until after the Olympics as his White House’s frustration with the Pentagon over the lack of military options for confronting Kim is revealed (Daily Mail) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’d wait until the Winter Olympics are over to make an assessment on North Korea. Exasperated, the U.S. president said ‘we have no road left’ and this month’s Pyeongchang Games will hopefully bulldoze a new pathway to peace on the Korean Peninsula. ‘We ran out of road. You know the expression, the road really ended,’ Trump said in an Oval Office meet and greet with North Korean defectors. ‘But in the meantime we’ll get through the Olympics.’ The White House’s frustrations with the Pentagon over a smaller than desired list of military options to confront North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un had been revealed the evening before in a New York Times report.
- Winter Olympics: North Korea presses ahead with military parade (BBC) – North Korea has defended plans for a large-scale military parade scheduled for the day before the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Pyongyang’s annual military parade to mark the founding of its armed forces has taken place in April for 40 years. From 2018, however, it has been changed to 8 February – when athletes will gather in Pyeongchang for the opening ceremony the following day. North Korea said that no-one had the right to take issue with its plans.
- North Korea brushes off criticism of military parade before Olympics (NY Post) – North Korea is giving a gold-medal brush off to those criticizing its plans to stage a giant military parade the day before the Winter Olympics begin. The Rodong Sinmun newspaper dismissed as “malicious” allegations that the parade is intended to ruin the atmosphere of the Olympics opening the following day in South Korea. “Nobody has the right to take issue” with the parade, which will mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s military, the newspaper said. “This amounts to arguing that we knew 70 years ago the Olympics will take place in the South on Feb. 9, 2018,” said Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.
