Biden nominates Lt Gen Xavier Brunson as new US Forces Korea commander
Washington: US President Joe Biden has nominated Lt Gen Xavier Brunson, the commander of I Corps, to lead the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command (CFC), the Pentagon has said, a nomination ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
If confirmed, Brunson would replace Gen Paul LaCamera who has led CFC, United Nations Command (UNC) and US Forces Korea (USFK) since July 2021. His Senate confirmation hearing is slated for Tuesday next week, Yonhap news agency reported.
The position of the top US general in South Korea leads the three commands, including the 28,500-strong USFK.
The nomination came as Seoul and Washington have been stepping up cooperation to sharpen deterrence against evolving North Korean nuclear and missile threats, with Pyongyang shunning dialogue and deepening its military cooperation with Moscow.
Brunson has been commanding I Corps, which is the Army’s operational headquarters for the Indo-Pacific. The unit manages the daily activities of more than 40,000 service members across the Indo-Pacific, including personnel stationed in Washington, Hawaii and Alaska, according to the Army.
Brunson has served in various key defence positions in both conventional and special operations forces, according to the Army. His operational assignments included deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was commissioned as an infantry officer upon graduation from Hampton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. He also earned a Master of Arts degree in human resource development from Webster University and a Master of Science degree in national security strategic studies from the US Army War College.