SEOUL Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Against a backdrop of North Korea's accelerating nuclear program and a fracturing geopolitical landscape, senior military officials and lawmakers from the United States and South Korea gathered in Seoul earlier this week to seek a fundamental redesign of their decades-old military partnership.
The second annual ROK-U.S. Combined Policy Forum, held at the Royal Park Convention, arrived at what participants described as a historical inflection point. As the security environment shifts from traditional border defense to a complex web of regional threats, the discussion centered on transitioning the alliance into a modern, multi-domain force.
"Korea is not simply responding to threats on the peninsula," Gen. Xavier T. Brunson, commander of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said in a keynote address.
He characterized the current era as a "pivotal moment" and stressed that alliance modernization "should be more than a slogan."
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