Why not abolish this pact when the ROK is the only one following it:
North Korea’s recent missile launches are widely viewed as a prelude to a seventh nuclear test and South Korea is exploring various response measures to deal with additional provocations. One of the measures being mentioned is scrapping the 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement which calls on the two Koreas to cease “hostile activities” against each other, including military exercises near the inter-Korean border.
Korea Times
Conservatives are urging Seoul to consider pulling out of the agreement, which they claim restrains South Korea’s defense capabilities by limiting military exercises and reconnaissance activities.
“We should declare the scrapping of the military agreement if North Korea carries out a seventh nuclear weapon test,” Ruling People Power Party (PPP) interim leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk wrote on Facebook on Friday, a day after the North deployed 12 military aircraft for an air strike drill.
“If we destroy the pact, our military’s flight boundaries and firing exercise zones in the East and West seas will expand, bolstering our capabilities in surveilling North Korea and deterrence firepower,” Chung added.
You can read more at the link.
This is a big change going from armored to a Stryker Brigade in South Korea. It will be interesting to see if the Army keeps rotating Stryker units to South Korea:
A Stryker Brigade Combat Team from the 2nd Infantry Division arrived in South Korea on Saturday as part of the Army’s annual rotational force in the country.
Stryker vehicles and other equipment from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were offloaded at the Port of Pyeongtaek near Camp Humphreys, according to a news release from 8th Army on Friday. The base is the home of U.S. Forces Korea, U.N. Command, 8th Army and the 2nd Infantry Division.
The division announced in July that the team out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., would replace the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division from Fort Bliss, Texas, which will be returning home after a nine-month tour in South Korea.
Roughly 4,000 soldiers are attached to Stryker brigade combat teams. Centered on Stryker vehicles that can be configured for narrowly defined missions, they are able to perform with fewer resources than armored brigade combat teams.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Manny Pacquiao despite being age 43 is still getting into the ring, this time in South Korea:
Filipino boxing great Manny Pacquiao will fight in an exhibition match in South Korea this winter to raise money for war-torn Ukraine, the event’s organizers announced Tuesday.
Pacquiao, the only eight-division world champion in boxing history, will take on the South Korean mixed martial artist DK Yoo at 11 a.m. on Dec. 11 at the Korea International Exhibition Center (KINTEX) in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul. Proceeds from the match will be donated to help relief and recovery efforts in Ukraine.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This is an important upgrade that allows the Patriot firing batteries spread across South Korea to use tracking data provided by the much more powerful THAAD radar to better intercept North Korean missiles:
U.S. Forces Korea has delivered equipment that will add functionality to a missile-defense system stationed on the peninsula and better “protect the South Korean people from North Korea’s missile threats,” according to a statement from the Ministry of National Defense on Friday.
The new equipment will provide “better performance” for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system by “improving interoperability” between it and the United States’ Patriot missile system, the statement said.
Interoperability is a term often used by the military to describe the ability of a country’s armed forces to use another country’s training methods and equipment.
Another THAAD system was not delivered as part of the package, the ministry added. The new equipment will replace parts in the existing system, and the older equipment will be returned to the United States.
South Korea’s alliance with the U.S. is more prepared to respond to the North’s “advanced nuclear and missile threats” because of the THAAD upgrade, the Eighth Army’s deputy commander, Gen. Mark Holler, said in the statement. THAAD is defensive system that will not “interfere with strategic and security interests of neighbor countries,” he added.
U.S. missile defense agencies have worked toward integrating the Patriot and THAAD systems for at least two years. Multiple tests in 2020 attempted to provide THAAD-generated tracking data on a simulated target to a Patriot system, which would then intercept the target.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
This line of attack was so predictable from the Korean left:
Nothing is wrong with holding joint military exercises with Japan to cope with the common threat of North Korea, a presidential spokesperson said Tuesday, rejecting opposition criticism that such drills could lead to the stationing of Japanese troops in South Korea.
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, has been voicing such concerns while denouncing trilateral naval exercises, which South Korea held with the United States and Japan in the East Sea last week, as a move legitimizing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces as a regular military.
His point was that such exercises would help advance Japan’s ambitions to become a normal country capable of waging war and South Korea could fall victim to Japan’s renewed militarism and face a fate similar to the 1910-45 colonial rule.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but in a war with North Korea, the ROK is going to need Japanese support so it is best to train for it now. The Korean left seems more concerned about Japan taking over Korea than the Kim regime or China. This argument would be like NATO countries saying they cannot train with Germany because then they would be taken over again by a rising Germany. This argument is stupid just like the Korean left’s argument about Japan.
Cynically they know their argument is flimsy and without merit, but they are just trying to tap into deep rooted anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea to further erode President Yoon’s poll numbers.
