Former South Korean National-Security Adviser: The U.S. May Have to Withdraw Some Troops

SEOUL, South Korea—In a striking challenge to his fellow conservatives ahead of nuclear talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, a top aide to former South Korean President Lee Myung Bak told me that South Koreans will “have to live with” a reduction in American forces in Korea “if that’s necessary and there’s no other way to denuclearize North Korea.”

“If we can make a deal with the U.S. on the basis of partial withdrawal—a drawdown of U.S. troops—that’s something I think we should discuss seriously,” said Chun Yung Woo, who served as national-security adviser to Lee—a conservative hard-liner on North Korea and champion of the U.S.–South Korea alliance—from 2010 to 2013.

Discussion over the status of U.S. forces in South Korea is so touchy that, when a suggested that the Pentagon might draft plans for a drawdown, it prompted furious denials from the Trump administration. When an adviser to that a peace agreement with North Korea would generate public debate about the rationale for an ongoing American military presence in Korea, it produced an outcry in South Korea. Chun, whose conservative brethren tend to be uncompromising on the need for the U.S. alliance, said of his own remarks, “All Korean conservatives will try to crucify me.”