GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump is putting new strain on one of America's closest military alliances and raising broader questions about what the U.S.

now expects from its allies.

The president has ordered the Pentagon to substantially scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, citing their cost, his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Seoul's refusal to join the U.S.

effort against Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Why are we doing it?

So all I want is fairness.

And South Korea, I get along with them very well.

But we can't go around and protect all of these countries, especially when they're not there to help us.

GEOFF BENNETT: The annual drills are a cornerstone of the decades-old alliance intended to prepare American and South Korean forces for a potential conflict with the nuclear-armed North.

Mr.

Trump's decision has prompted fresh questions in Seoul about America's reliability as a security partner.

President Lee responded earlier today.

LEE JAE MYUNG, South Korean President (through translator): A strong South Korea-U.S.

alliance in strengthening our independent defense capabilities are mutually reinforcing.

A strong alliance makes the foundation of security stronger, and strengthening our own capabilities increases our value and necessity as an ally.

GEOFF BENNETT: The dispute is the latest example of President Trump taking a more transactional approach to traditional alliances, pressing partners not just to spend more on their own defense, but to support U.S.

priorities elsewhere in the world.

For more, we're joined now by retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery.

He's had a 32-year career in the U.S.

Navy, served on the National Security Council staff, and later as policy director on staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He's now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Thank you for being with us.

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

), Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump linking military cooperation with South Korea to Seoul's decision not to support the war in Iran, how significant a shift is that in the way the U.S.

manages alliances?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): This is really unusual.

I mean, the United States -- throughout my whole military career, and I think in general, the United States has always said one of our greatest strengths are our allies and partners.

We should be leveraging them, not punishing them.

And in this case, South Korea has a significant challenge to face in North Korea.

North Korea is getting stronger and more powerful because of its relationship with Russia and its contributions to the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

And they have a greater threat to South Korea right now.

So South Korea is really trapped on the peninsula worried about North Korea.

So I think it's very inappropriate for the president to try to transactionally place South Korea in extremis for their failure to support Iranian -- operations in Iran.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, what's the through line here?

Do you see an identifiable strategy, or is this policy being driven by the president's own relationships, grievances, preferences, and instincts?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): I would say yes, yes, yes, and yes.

And what I mean is, he actually did this in 2019 as well.

He believes he has this kind of personal relationship with other -- with authoritarian leaders, and that he can somehow change them.

Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nuclear weapons.

He's not going to come to an agreement with South Korea.

And the president's not going to get a Nobel Prize, going to negotiate some big deal with North Korea.

And what he's really doing is working with one of the members of the kind of axis of aggressors that's challenging the United States around the world, whether it's in China with Taiwan or Russia and Ukraine in Eastern Europe or North Korea and South Korea.

So he's really -- he's really trying to work with the other team and not with his allies and partners in South Korea and Japan.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to return to this word transactional.

How do you distinguish between effective burden-sharing and an alliance becoming transactional?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): But, first, let's be clear.

The president was correct in his criticism of Europe and even Japan, Taiwan, Korea at some point.

They were not spending enough on defense.

Particularly in Europe, they were down in the below 2 percent on average before he started to complain about it in 2017 and 2018.

And they have changed, mostly because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but also because of their own investment.

So he has achieved something there.

But the problem is, not everything is this -- is a -- can be viewed for the prism of, you support me here, I will support you there.

And his attacks on -- his threatening of Greenland, his disinvestment from Ukraine, they really send a strong signal that the United States is not a credible partner in Europe, for example.

This removing -- dropping out of these critical exercises that drive U.S.

and Korean force readiness sends a strong signal that we're not a credible partner to Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

There's a real risk in this transactional approach that far exceeds the benefit of getting them to spend a little more money on their defense.

GEOFF BENNETT: And what does China learn from tensions between Washington and its Asian allies?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): Well, China's learning that we're easy to distract.

I mean, we have been just distracted in Europe and Ukraine, and others got involved in that and created bad relations between the United States and its European NATO allies.

We have been distracted in the Middle East.

We're using our munitions up significantly there.

China's learning that the United States has a simultaneity problem.

We can't deal with two theaters simultaneously.

The George Washington carrier strike group is leaving the Indo-Pacific now to go to the Middle East, and we will be with basically a destroyer or two spread throughout the whole Western Pacific.

So if China were in a position to take advantage of it, which I'm not sure they are at this moment, but, if they were, they could take advantage of it.

So it's a really strong negative deterrent signal from the United States that we're unable to handle two theaters simultaneously.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the USS Abraham Lincoln, as you well know, has spent an extraordinary amount of time at sea.

You commanded a carrier strike group, as I understand it.

What does 270 days, nearly nine months without a port visit, mean for the sailors, the ship, and its overall readiness?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): So it's hard.

I mean, I commanded a carrier strike group whose maximum deployment was about 4.5 months because we worked out of the -- out of Japan.

I have done deployments of seven and eight months in length.

They're very hard.

A nine-month deployment on the Lincoln is hard on the crew.

It's also hard because they had 250 days between port visits, and that number will get larger, like you said, to about 270 days.

That's unprecedented.

And on top of it, they had no end date.

That's the killer in terms of angst and eventually depression in your sailors, is not knowing when it's going to end, when they can resolve their problems with their family, when they can see their new children, things like that.

So I'm glad that Admiral Brad Cooper stepped up, put an end date to this by getting the George Washington named as its relief and visiting the ship.

That's the kind of leadership you expect from the military, not the kind of leadership we got from the president, where he kind of made it -- he kind of minimized the impact on the ship.

I'm not sure he really understands what nine months in the very limited living spaces are for our junior enlisted folks.

It's not comfortable and it is stressful.

GEOFF BENNETT: And what does it signal more broadly about the demands being placed on the U.S.

military right now?

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): Well, that's the real key here is that if this kind of where we're doing blockade ops, protecting the Bab al-Mandab, protecting two carrier strike groups, maintaining a defense of Israel with ballistic missile assets, and both at sea and ashore and extra fighter squadrons to potentially do attacks, we're really stressing the military.

It's very -- another six to eight months of this, and we're going to have a massive what we call a readiness bathtub.

That's where 18 months from now to two years from now, our fighter squadron readiness is down around 30 percent, we're unable to deploy aircraft carriers,we don't have enough destroyers at sea, we don't have enough army ballistic missile defense systems.

The systems we use in Iran are key to a war fight with China or Russia.

And so if you have a readiness decline in those, a significant one, two to three years from now, we're not going to be ready for a conflict with just one opponent in two or three years, and that's because of this -- these long 12-to-18-month deployment span that we're looking at total for the force to deal with this Iran issue.

GEOFF BENNETT: Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, thank you for being with us.

REAR ADM.

MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.

): Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a note that we will have another perspective on U.S.

relations with its historic allies tomorrow on the program.