Flying bomber jets with South Korean fighters is one of the typical U.S. responses to North Korean provocations. What makes this one different is that the Japanese joined in to make it a trilateral deterrence drill:
U.S. B-52 bombers flew with Japanese and South Korean fighter jets Friday in separate exercises as a show of unity intended to deter would-be adversaries, the Defense Department said Friday.
The joint aerial training comes amid elevated tensions with North Korea and China.
It did not take long for the Japanese to crash one of their F-35’s:
Search and rescue teams found wreckage from a crashed Japanese F-35 stealth fighter in the Pacific Ocean close to northern Japan, as efforts to find the missing pilot continued, authorities said on Wednesday.
The aircraft, less than one-year-old, was the first F-35 to be assembled in Japan and was aloft for only 28 minutes on Tuesday before contact was lost, a defense official said. The plane had logged a total of 280 hours in the air since its first flight, he added. It is only the second F-35 to crash in the two-decades it has been flying and could reignite concern about the F-35 having only one engine.
You can read more at the link, but hopefully they are able to recover the pilot. It will be interesting to see what the cause of the crash is because this was pretty much a brand new aircraft with only 280 flight hours.
The Japanese are now claiming that its patrol plane was targeted by the South Korean Navy ship multiple times which means this was likely no accident if true:
A diplomatic row between South Korea and Japan escalated for a third day since a South Korean destroyer allegedly locked its radar on a Japanese surveillance plane Thursday during an operation to rescue a distressed North Korean vessel.
A Japanese Defense Ministry official on Sunday said that the South Korean warship targeted a Japanese patrol plane “multiple times for several minutes using its attack-purpose radar.” He reiterated demands by Japan’s Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya a day earlier that Seoul apologize for what he called an “extremely dangerous act.”
Iwaya said that the South Korean Gwanggaeto the Great-class destroyer aimed its fire control radar at a Japanese P-1 patrol plane that was conducting surveillance operations over its waters near central Honshu on Thursday.
The Moon administration is saying this all lies and that the Japanese government is using this distract domestic attention:
South Korea voiced “strong regrets” Monday over Japan’s repeated claim that its Navy ship directed fire-control radar at Tokyo’s patrol aircraft last week, a Seoul official said. Korea’s foreign ministry expressed its view during director-general talks with Japan in Seoul. “We have voiced strong regrets that Japan has unilaterally made its own claims to the media,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The two sides sufficiently explained their positions, but there appear to be gaps in their views. But we have agreed to continue communication going forward, if need be,” he added. On Friday, Tokyo publicly accused a South Korean warship of having targeted its Maritime Self-Defense Force’s P-1 patrol aircraft on Thursday. Seoul rejected the claim, saying Tokyo misinterpreted its naval operation to help a North Korean ship drifting near a sea border in the East Sea. Despite Seoul’s denial, Tokyo has repeatedly raised the issue, sparking speculation that the Japanese government appears to be trying to divert attention from its waning public support.
Reading this Korean government statement has me wondering if the ROK Navy ship locked its weapons control radar on the Japanese aircraft to divert it from collecting intelligence on whatever they were doing with the North Korean ship.
I also find it ironic that the ROK government is claiming that the Japanese government is using the incident to divert domestic political attention when the ROK government regularly uses the Dokdo or comfort women issues to do the same thing.
Korean Gwanggaeto the Great destroyer [NEWS1]
Here is another statement from the ROK government that does not make sense:
South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Saturday dismissed the claims that its destroyer aimed its radar at the Japanese plane, and said that the ship had been carrying out routine operations at the time. A source within the South Korean Navy later clarified that the radar had been used to search for a North Korean vessel that had been marooned for several days off the peninsula’s east coast on Thursday.
The South Korean Navy that day rescued three North Korean sailors off the distressed fishing boat and recovered one body. They were then handed over to the North across the demilitarized zone on Friday.
Though it acknowledged the South Korean navy had indeed been carrying out a search and rescue operation that day, Japan’s Defense Ministry refused to accept Seoul’s explanations over the use of the radar, saying it was not an appropriate instrument for a maritime search maneuver.
As the Japanese Defense Ministry stated, a maritime search radar is different from the weapons control radar. The only explanation that makes sense is that the ROK Navy ship locked on the aircraft to divert it away from their operation with the North Korean vessel. The obvious next question is what was so sensitive about a supposed search and rescue mission that a ROK Navy ship did something as provocative as locking a weapons control radar on a Japanese patrol plane to divert it?
Or could this all just be simple incompetence by the ROK Navy?
Royal Australian Air Force to conduct joint training exercise with Japan Air Self-Defense Force in Japan for the first time, coming September 10-30. https://t.co/kcBTYWKl90
