Yes, I recall that the original “police action” was in concert with the UN and that the action never ended but is now in truce. I also understand that we, the US, requested a UN mandate but that it is not a UN requirement of US.
So, since it is a UN action, as you assert, why is the US so prominent and the others so absent?
The US represents 4.4% of the global population. We have 30,000 troops in SK at our cost and our risk. I’ll risk that some may understand the implication of this proportionality.
When last I checked my facts the US is one nation of 192 member states. Where are the other 190 in this engagement?
In 2005 Seoul had requested regaining wartime control of its armed forces. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Kwang-ung discussed the wartime operational command at the 32nd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held in Seoul in October 2005. Defense Minister Yoon said “The issue of wartime command transfer will become one of the main issues to be discussed at SCM.” The defense chiefs discussed transferring wartime command of the nation’s troops back to Seoul during the annual security consultations. Wartime operational control was part of a much broader discussion of command relationships. Seoul regained the right to control its armed forces in peacetime in 1994. Wartime command was originally transferred to the US-led United Nations Command in 1950.
Final negotiations to set a date for this transition were agreed to in 2007, with a ROK military OPCON transition from CFC to the ROK JFC date set for 17 April 2012. To achieve realignment of responsibilities in the transition of wartime OPCON in 2012, the ROK and U.S. militaries completed a transition road map — the Strategic Transition Plan (STP) — signed in 2007, identifying requirements and milestones for the next five years. Prior to the ROK assuming wartime operational control of its own forces in 2012, U.S. and ROK planners will develop new terms of reference, crisis action standard operating procedures, wartime command and control procedures, and operational plans through formal alliance consultative processes, such as the bi-monthly Security Policy Initiative and the annual Security Consultative and Military Committee Meetings.
Meeting at the G-20 economic summit in Toronto om 26 June 2010, President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed to delay the current April 17, 2012, date to December 2015. The postponement of the so-called OPCON plan “reflects the current security condition on the Korean peninsula and will strengthen the alliance of the two nations,” Lee was quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency in a joint press conference with Obama after the summit.