[To celebrate its Armed Forces Day, which falls on Sunday, South Korea’s military showed off some of its new weapons during a parade Thursday. For the first time, the military displayed its Hyunmoo ballistic missiles, which can reach all of North Korea and are a key element of its “Kill Chain” preemptive-strike system.]
By
Anna Fifield
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B-1B bomber prepares to take off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam
on
Saturday. (Staff Sgt. Joshua Smoot/U.S. Air Force via AP)
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The United States will send “strategic”
military assets to South Korea on a more regular basis to better deter North
Korea, the South’s national security adviser said Thursday.
The decision, which has not yet been
confirmed by the Pentagon, comes at a time of escalating tensions between the
United States and North Korea, with many analysts concerned that incendiary
rhetoric, combined with more frequent flyovers by American bombers, could lead
to a catastrophic miscalculation.
Chung Eui-young, national security adviser to
President Moon Jae-in, told lawmakers in Seoul that American “strategic assets”
could be deployed to South Korea on a “rotational” basis before the end of the
year.
“This will help us expand our defense
capabilities,” he told the lawmakers, according to Park Wan-joo, spokesman of
the ruling Democratic Party.
He did not define “strategic assets,” but
South Korean officials usually use the term to refer to B-52 bombers, stealth
warplanes, nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.
North Korea’s foreign minister recently
warned that his country’s military was ready to shoot down American military
planes even if they were not in North Korean airspace.
South Korean lawmakers were told that
Washington had put its pledge on the deployment in writing, Park confirmed.
A spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command,
based in Hawaii, did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation or
comment.
To celebrate its Armed Forces Day, which
falls on Sunday, South Korea’s military showed off some of its new weapons
during a parade Thursday. For the first time, the military displayed its
Hyunmoo ballistic missiles, which can reach all of North Korea and are a key
element of its “Kill Chain” preemptive-strike system.
“Our government’s determination to protect
peace requires strong defense capabilities, and we will stand up against
reckless provocations with strong punishment,” Moon said after inspecting the
weapons.
“Securing counter capabilities against North
Korean nuclear and missile threats is the most urgent task. We must further
strengthen our Kill Chain and Korean missile defense system,” the president
said.
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo
last month asked his American counterpart, Jim Mattis, to send such military
hardware to the southern half of the peninsula on a regular basis.
A poll that YTN, a cable news channel,
commissioned in August found that 68 percent of respondents said they supported
bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea.
This issue has become more and more important
to South Korea as tensions with North Korea have risen. With top Trump
administration officials repeatedly saying that military options for dealing
with Kim Jong Un’s regime are on the table, some in South Korea have grown
increasingly concerned about becoming collateral damage.
North Korea has enough conventional artillery
trained on the greater Seoul area, home to 25 million people as well as several
large U.S. military bases, to cause widespread devastation before the American
and South Korean militaries can respond.
If North Korea were to start unleashing its
artillery on the South, it would be able to fire about 4,000 rounds an hour,
Roger Cavazos of the Nautilus Institute estimated in a 2012 study. There would
be 2,811 fatalities in the initial volley and 64,000 people could be killed
that first day, the majority of them in the first three hours, he wrote.
As North Korea has continued to show off its
growing arsenal — detonating a hydrogen bomb and firing increasingly long-range
missiles — the U.S. and South Korean militaries have been conducting drills as
a “show of strength.”
Air Force B-1B bombers from Andersen Air
Force base on Guam and Marine Corps F-35B fighters from Iwakuni, Japan, have
been dropping bombs on a training range in South Korea, just a few dozen miles
from the border with the North.
South Korean F-15K fighters have been doing
the same, and South Korea has tested missiles designed to show that North
Korea’s nuclear and missile test sites are within range.
But South Korean officials have been pushing
for more than just flyovers from warplanes based in Japan or Guam: They want
them to land in South Korea to show greater commitment to the military
alliance.
But there are logistical reasons that cannot
happen, Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert who served on President Barack Obama’s
National Security Council, has said. Military airstrips in South Korea are not
long enough for big, heavy B-52s, and the United States does not want its
high-tech fighter jets sitting within North Korean artillery range, he said.
The United States regularly sends aircraft
carriers, as well as Los Angeles-class submarines, to South Korea during annual
joint military exercises. But the South Koreans are seeking a more consistent
and higher-power show of American military commitment.
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