A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times – An Instant New York Times Bestseller: A Pentagon Insider's Tumultuous Years Under President Trump

by Mark T. Esper

For example, I was eager to make changes to our posture on the peninsula that would upgrade our readiness and capabilities, such as replacing many of our permanently based fourth-generation fighters with fifth-generation F-35s. Although I was told XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX, General Abrams, the four-star commander of U.S. Forces Korea, supported getting these advanced aircraft into Korea, especially since the Korean air force already had twenty F-35s in-country. Abrams liked this idea but thought it would be a political and diplomatic bridge too far, not to mention how North Korea might react. However, I believed this was also manageable if done collaboratively and over time. I proposed instead that we not permanently base the F-35s in Korea, but that we rotate them every six months or so back and forth from different units in the United States. A side benefit, I added, would be that we could keep the crews’ families in the States, where they had more stability, including better access to jobs for the spouses. Also important, more U.S. Air Force squadrons would get greater exposure to flying in-country with the Korean air force. This is what we were doing with the Army’s armored brigade combat teams, and it was working out fine.