It has been five years and the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan is back conducting exercises with the ROK Navy in response to a North Korean provocation:
The USS Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered supercarrier, will arrive at the southeastern port city of Busan later this week for joint military drills with South Korea amid mounting nuclear threats from North Korea.
According to military sources Sunday, the Nimitz-class supercarrier will take part in combined exercises with the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy in the East Sea this month for the first time since 2017, when Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test.
The move comes immediately after the two allies issued a joint statement Friday (local time), after holding a meeting in Washington to denounce the North for passing a law earlier this month to grant its military the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also called the nation’s nuclear status “irreversible,” leaving no room for negotiation on the issue.
It seems the U.S. and the ROK are getting their responses coordinated for whatever provocation the North Koreans have planned to execute during the upcoming Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise later this month:
The 14th Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) is under way at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, July 25, 2018. Yonhap
South Korea and the United States are set to hold regular defense talks here next week, informed sources said Sunday, as the allies are striving to reinforce security coordination amid North Korea’s military threats.
The biannual Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) is expected to run from Aug. 16 to 17 in Seoul, the sources said, with the allies likely to discuss joint deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
The meeting comes amid speculation that Pyongyang has completed preparations for a nuclear test. It also comes ahead of the allies’ combined exercise, dubbed the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) training, set for Aug. 22-Sept. 1.
This is something that has been done in the past, but was suspended under the liberal Moon Jae-in administration. Now with a new President it appears restarting trilateral cooperation may soon become a reality:
Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin, pose for a photo before their talks on the sidelines of a security forum in Singapore, June 11. Yonhap
The defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Saturday to step up cooperation to counter North Korea’s missile threats through their combined regular security exercises, including missile warning drills, Seoul’s defense ministry said.
Lee Jong-sup and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Nobuo Kishi, reached the agreement during their gathering held on the margins of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
This was actually quite a large grouping of fighter jets flying over the waters near Korea yesterday. Just the ROK itself flew 16 fighter jets. Unfortunately the ROK and Japan did not fly together, but instead in different groupings with American fighters:
South Korea and the U.S. engage in an air power demonstration, involving F-35A radar-evading fighters, over the Yellow Sea on June 7, 2022, in this photo released by the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The United States and its Asian allies flew dozens of fighter jets over waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday in a show of force as their diplomats discussed a coordinated response to a possibly imminent North Korean nuclear test.
The flights came as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveled to Seoul for discussions with South Korea and Japanese officials over the gathering North Korean threat and warned of a “swift and forceful” counterresponse if the North proceeds with a nuclear test explosion, which would be its first in nearly five years.
The THAAD has been in South Korea now for five years and still the environmental assessment has not been completed and protesters continue to block the road. This clearly has little to do with the environment and everything to do with politics. It will be interesting to see if the Korean left tries to mobilize around the THAAD issue and launch Braveheart style attacks against ROK police if and when they try and remove the protesters like they did at Camp Humphreys years ago:
Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup talks with troops at a boot camp in Nonsan, 213 kilometers south of Seoul, on May 23, 2022, in this photo released by his office.
South Korea will expeditiously push for the “normalization” of a U.S. THAAD missile defense unit here, Seoul’s defense minister said Monday, as it has been in the status of “temporary installation” due to an environmental assessment and other reasons.
Lee Jong-sup made the remarks as Seoul and Washington are striving to sharpen joint deterrence against Pyongyang amid growing concerns about possibilities of the regime’s additional provocations, like a long-range ballistic missile or nuclear test.
“The normalization of the THAAD unit should have been done (earlier),” Lee said in a meeting with reporters. “We will push for it (to materialize) at an early date.”
It looks like Key Resolve and UFG exercises could be coming back:
President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed Saturday to begin discussions on expanding joint military exercises between the two countries amid growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.
The two reached the agreement during their first summit in Seoul, which took place as both countries believed a nuclear test or intercontinental ballistic missile launch from the North was imminent and could even happen while Biden was touring the region.
“Both leaders agree to initiate discussions to expand the scope and scale of combined military exercises and training on and around the Korean Peninsula,” a joint statement on the summit said.
Here is some increased messaging of unity within the US-ROK alliance:
Top South Korean and U.S. military officers on Thursday boarded a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sailing in the East Sea, sources said, in a rare move to highlight the allies’ unity amid concerns about possible North Korean provocations.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Won In-choul and Gen. Paul LaCamera, the head of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, met aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier that arrived in the waters earlier this week in a show of America’s military might.
Their symbolic meeting came amid speculation that the North could engage in provocative acts, like another intercontinental ballistic missile launch or a nuclear test, in time for its key political events, including the 110th birthday of its late national founder Kim Il-sung on Friday.
That is pretty bad when China is outpolled by North Korea is a survey like this. Additionally these survey results give a mandate to incoming President Yoon’s agenda to strengthen ties with the U.S.:
American and South Korea flags wave outside Camp Humphreys, South Korea, March 16, 2020. (Stars and Stripes)
Nearly 87% of South Koreans think their country ought to develop closer ties to the United States than to any other nation, according to a poll released Monday.
The survey found 86.8% of respondents believe Seoul should develop closer economic, foreign and security policy ties with Washington. The Federation of Korean Industries commissioned the poll, which was conducted March 24-28.
Just 5% of respondents said North Korea ought to be the top partner with South Korea, and 3.2% said China. The European Union was cited by 2.1%, and 1.4% said Japan.
The poll surveyed 1,000 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. The federation, an association of large businesses, seeks to “promote sound economic policies,” according to its website.
You can read more at the link, but I think this survey says more about China than the U.S. because is demonstrates the level of distrust many South Koreans have with the CCP. It would be interesting if this same poll was conducted in multiple countries in the region to see if similar results are found.
The U.S. and ROK militaries will work to update OPLAN’s that reflect the changes in capabilities the North Koreans have demonstrated with their nuclear and missile programs:
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Gen. Won In-choul (L) and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Mark Milley, pose for a photo before their Military Committee Meeting at South Korea’s JCS on Dec. 1, 2021, in this photo provided by the JCS here.
The top military officials of South Korea and the United States have signed a document directing the update of joint wartime contingency plans, Seoul officials said Thursday, following North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch last week.
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Gen. Won In-choul and his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Mark Milley, inked the Strategic Planning Directive (SPD) during their talks in Hawaii on Wednesday (local time), according to South Korea’s JCS.
The SPD signing is bound to accelerate a previously agreed-upon process to rewrite the allies’ wartime operation plans (OPLANs).
