US Eighth Army chief says his troops in Korea must be ready for missions beyond the peninsula

The commander of the US Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Joseph Hilbert, has said the American soldiers he leads in South Korea must be prepared to deploy outside the Korean peninsula if ordered. In an emailed interview with the South China Morning Post published on 21 October, he argued that it would be irresponsible to concentrate narrowly on threats on the peninsula alone, or to claim that his troops cannot do other things simply because they are based in Korea.

Hilbert said his command remained focused on meeting US obligations under the mutual defence treaty with Seoul, but that the Eighth Army's location did not limit the missions it could undertake. He described the formation as part of a global force that trains for readiness so that it can be sent wherever the US national command authority needs it, and he cited its part in multinational exercises across the Asia-Pacific as an example of activity beyond the peninsula.

According to Yonhap, Hilbert also said the army treats readiness as largely independent of any one threat. In his account, a trained force that is ready to carry out the army's assigned missions can be applied against whatever threat requires it, and his soldiers train every day with South Korean forces against their principal threat while staying available for whatever the United States may require.

Asked by Yonhap about the possible contribution of US forces in South Korea to wider deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, a Pentagon official restated that the United States remains firmly committed to defending South Korea and to its obligations under the bilateral treaty. The official said the forces in Korea remain focused on readiness, deterring aggression and defending the Republic of Korea together with South Korean troops. The reply, as reported, did not address missions outside the peninsula.

The comments come as Washington presses for greater strategic flexibility for US Forces Korea, a concept that would allow troops stationed in the South to take on missions elsewhere in the region, potentially centred on deterring China, Yonhap reported. The US National Defense Strategy released in January said South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring the North with critical but more limited American support, a shift the Pentagon has described as updating the US force posture on the peninsula.

The Chosun Ilbo noted that the same strategy calls for a strong denial defence along the First Island Chain, the line of islands running from southern Kyushu through Taiwan to the Philippines. That framing links the future role of US ground forces in Korea to the wider contest with China in the waters around Taiwan.

Hilbert's direct superior, USFK commander General Xavier Brunson, has made similar arguments in recent months. The Chosun Ilbo reported that Brunson likened the Korean peninsula to a dagger from Beijing's point of view in May, and that at a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on 13 October he invited his audience to picture a line drawn on the map from Beijing to Seoul to show the peninsula's strategic position. He also said the Multi-Domain Task Force in Korea should improve its ability to combine space, air and ground surveillance assets to track military movements on and around the peninsula, according to the paper.

Established in 1944, the Eighth Army is the field-army-level command for US Army forces on the Korean peninsula and would lead American ground operations in a crisis there. It is headquartered at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, the Chosun Ilbo said. Any move to commit its units to contingencies elsewhere in the region would therefore touch the core of the alliance's ground defence arrangements, which is why the strategic flexibility debate remains sensitive in Seoul.