With joint drills cancelled, both militaries have been asked to sit with their discomfort instead.
Trump has scaled back joint military drills with South Korea, calling them hostile. SnarkWire reports the Pentagon is replacing them with a three-day trust-building intensive, complete with a talking object and homework for both Koreas. Deterrence, officials now say, was just co-dependency with aircraft carriers.
The commissary at Camp Humphreys sold out of chamomile tea on Saturday. Three pallets arrived at dawn. All of it was gone by lunch.
The tea run followed President Trump's order to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, drills he called "inappropriate and hostile." In their place, the Pentagon will hold a three-day trust-building intensive for the entire Korean peninsula. Attendance is mandatory. Judgment is not welcome.
And honestly? It is about time. For decades, these drills have been a textbook boundary violation. You cannot rehearse someone's invasion off their coast and then act surprised when they respond by enriching uranium. That is not deterrence. That is co-dependency with aircraft carriers.
The intensive will open with a grounding exercise for both armies. A brass artillery casing will serve as the talking object. Whoever holds it may share. Everyone else will practise active listening, a skill the Second Infantry Division has reportedly struggled with since 1950.
Dr. Marisol Okafor-Finch, the Pentagon's new Deputy Under Secretary for Emotional Readiness, briefed reporters at the base. "A war game is just unprocessed conflict wearing camouflage," she said. "We are inviting both Koreas to name the feeling underneath the missile."
"A nuclear arsenal is a trauma response. We don't shame trauma responses in this space. We hold them. Carefully. With tongs."
Some sessions will be difficult, and that is by design. Growth lives outside the demilitarized zone of comfort. The DMZ itself will be renamed the Regulation Zone for the duration, and guards on both sides will exchange affirmations across the fence at agreed intervals.
There has been resistance, because there always is. Retired General Chuck Braddock, a critic of the plan, said he asked officials when readiness training would resume. "I was told my question was a form of avoidance," he said. "Then they thanked me for my vulnerability and took my sidearm."
We should sit with the general's anger rather than fix it. Anger is often grief in a dress uniform.
Homework for the peninsula
Both nations leave the retreat with assignments. Seoul will journal about its attachment style. Pyongyang will practise three breathing exercises before each launch announcement. Washington will reflect on why it keeps showing up to other people's relationships with a fleet.
Kim Jong-un's arsenal was not discussed directly, out of respect. Facilitators referred to it only as "his journey." Everyone is on one. Some journeys are simply intercontinental.
The next session is scheduled for Saturday, assuming everyone does the reading. If anyone reaches for a ballistic missile in the meantime, they are asked to first reach for the feelings wheel. It is taped inside every silo. That is not weakness. That is the work.
