Trump's Former Pentagon Deputy: His Korea 'War Games' Comments Play Into Russian Hands
Robert Work, the one-time deputy defense secretary, warns that Trump’s shock announcement to pause drills with South Korea is a gift to Moscow and Beijing.
SPENCER ACKERMAN
06.13.18 1:52 PM ET
The former deputy defense secretary for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump is criticizing the substance and framing of Trump’s abrupt cancellation of joint military exercises with South Korea as a “pretty substantial concession” to North Korea—something that both Russia and China could turn to their advantage elsewhere.
“This seems like a pretty substantial concession on our part,” Robert O. Work, the number-two official at the Pentagon from April 2014 to July 2017, told The Daily Beast.
“Given that there were no really concrete concessions on the side of the North Koreans, I’m saying, wow, this was a pretty big concession to make without any conditions or any expectations of some type of concomitant North Korean concession.”
Work said he was “of two minds” about pausing the U.S.-South Korea drills, since Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis can resume them should Pyongyang demonstrate intransigence on ending its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-former-pentagon-deputy-his-korea-war-games-comments-play-into-russian-hands?ref=home
