Tag: ROK military

As every Korean politician knows, you can’t exploit anti-Japanese sentiment without sensationalizing the Dokdo issue. Some needs to tell the Blue House this is 2019 and not 1941:

In a move to protest Japan’s decision to remove it from a list of trusted trading partners, South Korea plans to hold a joint military exercise on a cluster of islets that sits in the sea between the neighboring countries, a government source said Sunday.

“The Ministry of Defense is considering conducting a joint defense drill on Dokdo this month,” the source said, Sunday. However, he was reluctant to provide specifics as the ministry has not confirmed the details of its plan. 

Military exercises were first conducted near the tiny land mass in 1986 and they were made a biannual practice since 2003 with naval ships, marines, military aircraft, maritime patrol boats and relevant combat personnel participating. A 3,200-ton of naval destroyer, maritime patrol vessels, P-3C anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft and F-15K fighters are typically mobilized during the drill, according to the ministry. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but you have China also claiming Korean territory and flying bombers over it and the Russians have actively violated Korean airspace over Dokdo with their war planes and there was never a rush to conduct a military exercise in response.

The worse the Japanese have done with Dokdo is threaten to have a research vessel of scientists enter into Dokdo’s exclusive economic zone. This of course set off a full scale crisis in South Korea and threats of war and even talks of assistance from North Korea. Japan never did send the research vessel, but Russian and Chinese warplanes are flying over Dokdo and Ieodo with no military drill in response.

The hypocrisy of the Korean left comes into full display every time they are in power when it comes to their anti-Japan agenda.

The Ministry of Science does not want to give up their free labor to the Ministry of Defense:

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of National Defense have come into conflict over the latter’s move to reduce the number of military duty exemptions for science and engineering majors by half.

While all able-bodied South Korean men must serve in the military for about two years as the two Koreas remain technically at war, those with master’s degrees or doctorates in natural sciences or engineering have been allowed to spend their military service working at R&D departments of state-designated research institutes.

The defense ministry is claiming that downsizing such special exemptions, which were introduced in 1973, is necessary to make up for the expected shortage in the number of active-duty personnel amid a constantly declining population. 

But the science ministry as well as universities, research institutes and students are arguing that the exemptions have effectively contributed to the development of the nation’s R&D sector and thus must be retained.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

A cut of 118,000 servicemembers is going to be quite a reduction in the size of the ROK military by 2022:

Concerns are being raised over possible regional economic crises in cities near the inter-Korean border as they are seeing a considerable population outflow with military units in the region having been or set to be withdrawn or unified in the near future. This is in line with the country’s overall Defense Reform 2.0 troop drawdown plan.

Under the five-year plan announced by President Moon Jae-in last July, the military is seeking to be smaller but “smarter” to counter the demographic cliff the country is facing. The combined number of troops in the ROK Armed Forces ― the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines ― is currently 618,000 but the government is planning to cut this by 118,000 by 2022. 

Out of the eight corps currently being operated by the Republic of Korea Army, two ― VI Corps in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province and VII Corps in Yangyang, Gangwon Province ― will be disbanded, while the number of Army divisions will also see a reduction from 39 to 33, according to military sources. 

Korea Times

You can read the rest at the link, but the governments of the cities near the DMZ are concerned about the loss of population from the troop cuts and how it will effect regional economies. The governments are planning to turn towards DMZ eco-tourism to fill the economic gap the cuts in troops is going to cause.

In my opinion virtual training is useful, but cannot replace actually firing real weapons and training in a real environment:

Technology plays an integral part in modern warfare, and its role is even more important for countries like South Korea, which faces constant threats from North Korea. 
In line with changing battlefield dynamics, the South Korean military has been pushing for ways to train soldiers in simulated environments using the latest technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
The Korea Military Academy has joined hands with local companies to develop VR and AR training programs for its Army cadets, which will be available on its Seoul campus later this year.
Experts say one of the key advantages of VR is the ability to immerse users in a virtual, yet safe, world, reducing costs and risks associated with battlefield training.
“Training soldiers using VR and AR content can save on the considerable budget for large-scale training and reduce risks from dangerous environments,” Kim Tae-kyu, a game professor at Kwangwoon University in Seoul, said. “It will be more beneficial when combined with real battlefield experiences.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I guess besides people becoming Jehovah’s Witnesses they can now eat their way out of their mandatory military service:

A man accused of putting on weight by eating fried chicken to avoid mandatory military service was acquitted of breaking the law on conscription, Incheon District Court said Sunday.

The 22-year-old college student reportedly underwent a physical examination for military service in August 2016. The test showed that the man, who weighed 106 kilograms and was 169.6 centimeters tall at the time, had Body Mass Index of 36.8. 

People with BMI of 33 and higher can be exempted from full-time military service and work as a public service worker. 

The prosecutors indicted the man for violating the military service law, arguing that he deliberately gained weight by eating fried chicken and drinking alcohol ahead of the physical exam to avoid the conscription. They also accused the man of stooping when getting his height measured so as to increase his BMI. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Fortunately no one was killed from this accidental firing of a Cheolmae-2 missile which is South Korea’s equivalent of a Patriot missile:

The inadvertent launch of an anti-aircraft missile at a military base in Chuncheon, Gangwon, on Monday was the result of maintenance accident, the South Korean Air Force said on Thursday.

After it was launched from a vehicle during a routine maintenance check, the Cheongung medium-range surface-to-air (SAM) missile exploded mid-air at around 10:38 p.m. on Monday. There were no casualties, nor was there property damage, but the accident spurred an investigation by the Air Force.

Following an on-site inspection and testimonies from witnesses, investigators concluded that the launch was unintentionally triggered by human error during a routine maintenance check. 

“During regular check-ups, mechanics are supposed to disconnect a cable plugged into the missile used in real operations and plug in a testing cable, but the communication between the mechanics was unclear and the check-up was performed without disconnecting the operational cable,” said an Air Force spokesman. “This caused the test launch signal transmitted by the mechanics’ laptop to trigger a launch, and the missile exploded mid-air around 3.5 seconds after launch due to its automatic self-destruction system.”

The missile is equipped with a mechanism that causes it to explode in the event of guidance system failures after launch, according to the Air Force’s briefing on the accident on Monday. 

Also known as the Cheolmae-2, the Cheongung SAM system was developed by the domestic arms producer Agency for Defense Development (ADD) based on the Russian 50R6 Vityaz and S-400 Triumf systems. Each missile costs around 1.5 billion won ($1.3 million) to produce, and a total budget of 1.2 trillion won has been allocated toward the project as a whole. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

After a South Korean court allowed conscientious objectors to not serve in the military and instead work at prison facilities to fulfill their mandatory service obligation. This has caused concern that people would lie about being a conscientious objector which has caused investigations of people’s video game habits:

Previously, people evading military services were sentenced to 18 months in jail. Those people are referred to by the public as conscientious objectors. 
The top court’s decision, which sparked an outrage among South Korean men, especially those who are fit for conscription, was followed by another question: How can a person’s conscience be judged?
As one of the measures to find out if objectors truly believe in peace, a South Korean district prosecutors’ office announced that it would look into objectors’ gaming history as one measure, including whether they have actively played online games that involve violence.
The Ulsan prosecutors’ office, which is looking into cases of 11 conscientious objectors, won approval from the court to investigate their gaming experiences. Under the court’s approval, the prosecutors requested data of the objectors at five major gaming firms.
The information requested by investigators was whether the objectors had IDs for such games and how long have they played them. As gaming firms only saves players’ data for around six months, prosecutors said they understand it will be hard to find out the history of people who have not recently played games.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.