advocating for greater dialogue. he said today, i believe our given task is reform the military. i believe we need a complete overhaul instead of defense reform at the level of minor improvements for modifications. to put that into context, these are words he spoke at a ceremony. he said these words to military commanders. these were not a direct response to the ratcheting up of rhetoric we ve seen from both south korea and the u.s. but this is certainly a realization of the intensity of the situation that has unfolded on the peninsula and the security threat that south korea very much feels that they are under. they ve lived under a threat for decades. it has certainly reached its highest level when you talk about the fact that north korea has shown that they can test these icbms, that they may have the capacity to miniaturize a nuclear weapon. look, north korea doesn t need to use nukes, they don t need to use icbms to launch an attack right here in the region. they can use the conve
here are not commenting publically on the incendiary statements that came from the u.s. president donald trump. of course, the united states and south korea are longstanding allies. south korea depends on the us for its defense. but the president did today repeat the platform that he has recently taken up. he is talking a lot more about what south korea needs to do to improve its ability to defend itself. here is what he said. i believe our given task is reform of the military. we need a complete overhaul instead of defense reform at a level of minor improvement or modifications. he made those remarks during a military ceremony. that s a reflection of a platform he has taken up. it was the subject of a conversation he had over the phone with donald trump this weekend, talking about the need for south korea to be able to expand its ability to defend itself and to help defend the region as north korea presents a mounting security threat.