MILITARY/NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “At the Singapore summit with Kim Jong Un last month, President Donald Trump said he was canceling military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, because they were provocative to North Korea and ‘tremendously expensive.’ The cost? According to a new Pentagon analysis prompted by Mr. Trump’s statement, the military exercises known as Freedom Guardian, which would have begun in August, would have set the U.S. military back $14 million. It is a fraction of the military’s annual budget of $700 billion, which increased 15.5% for the fiscal year 2018, and is less than the cost of one new fighter plane. That has prompted some to say that the money saved isn’t worth the impact on military readiness and that the military may have to spend money in other ways to ensure pilots and sailors receive the real-time experience the exercises offer…Others say Mr. Trump’s focus on the cost of exercises has had the benefit of forcing the Pentagon to assess the price and make it public. The military conducts hundreds of exercises a year. Some are tabletop exercises that use minimal U.S. military equipment and stress leadership instead. Others can involve tens of thousands of troops. Among the largest military exercises are Korea Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, monthlong activities that consisted this year of 11,500 U.S. troops and 300,000 South Korean troops. The Pentagon said its major exercises can cost as much as $20 million a year.”
–Nancy A. Youssef and Gordon Lubold, “‘War Games’ Trump Said Were Too Expensive Cost Less Than a Fighter Jet,” The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2018 8:00 am