Tag: ROK military

Other than managing the JSA, I don’t know why South Korea would need to do any military cooperation with North Korea:

 South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday urged an immediate halt to any attempts to seek military cooperation with North Korea, amid reports Russia and the North are eyeing arms and defense technology trade.

Yoon made the remark during a summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta, after The New York Times reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may travel to Vladivostok in Russia next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discuss a possible arms deal.

“Attempts at military cooperation with North Korea, which damage peace in the international community, should be stopped immediately,” the presidential office quoted Yoon as saying.

Yoon urged ASEAN to actively participate in efforts to block North Korea’s key sources of funding for its nuclear and missile development, such as cryptocurrency stealing and labor exports, and stressed the need for all United Nations member states to abide by U.N. Security Council sanctions on the North, including a ban on illegal arms trade, his office said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The South Korean military is facing suicide problems just like the U.S. military, but is focusing on bullying as the reason. I don’t support bullying in the military, but I think it has more to do with today’s youth being poorly conditioned both physically and mentally prior to entering military service. A lot of youth in South Korea do not conduct much physical activity, are on their phones all day, and playing video games. They are conscripted into the military where phones and video games are not as freely available and are doing exhausting physical activity which they are not used to. I think this all plays into why Soldiers may commit suicide especially when they are forced to be there:

Kim Gi-cheol remembers his son’s determination to fulfill his military duty as a South Korean citizen, despite having the opportunity to secure an exemption by acquiring foreign nationality.

Having spent an extended period abroad, his son was relatively unfamiliar with the Korean language and culture. Nevertheless, Kim never imagined that his son, who was proud to serve his home country, would be dead just three months after enlisting.

In November 2022, while stationed at a general post in Yanggu County, Gangwon Province near the inter-Korean border, Pvt. Kim took his own life.

The military and the police concluded the case as a suicide, presenting the rifle he used and testimony from his colleagues as evidence.

As the investigation unfolded, Kim’s father learned that his son had faced “systemic” bullying from his colleagues and military officers, and that he had trouble adjusting to military life. Pvt. Kim was reportedly pushed to the brink, forced to take on guard duties without adequate training amid an escalating security situation following North Korea’s consecutive missile launches.

“If someone is pondering changing their nationality, I implore them to do so without a second thought,” Kim told The Korea Herald. “Why should we subject our children to the military of the Republic of Korea, which has fallen into such a dismal state?”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but does anyone else have any theories on why ROK military servicemembers commit suicide?

It will be interesting to see how hard the Democratic Party of Korea fights this move:

The Korea Military Academy said Thursday it will remove the bust of revered independence fighter Hong Beom-do from its grounds following a heated debate over the defense ministry’s push for the relocation.

The decision came as the ministry has recently been considering relocating the busts of Hong from the academy and its headquarters, both in Seoul, citing his past record of collaborating with Soviet communist forces.

“By considering the academy’s identity and honoring (Hong) as an independence fighter, the bust of General Hong Beom-do will be relocated to an appropriate location outside the academy, where his independence movement achievements can be well displayed,” the academy said in a statement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like if a young Korean person wants to have their college paid for, an ROTC scholarship is a very easy one to receive now:

Cadets of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) throw their hats in the air during a commencement and commissioning ceremony at the Army Cadet Military School in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province, Feb. 28. Newsis

The ROK military is facing a severe shortage in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) applicants as young people increasingly shun the junior officer position apparently because of pay rates and the long service periods.

According to the Army, the Korean Military Academy will announce an additional recruitment notice for ROTC candidates in August. The decision comes as the application rate for the ROTC program hit a record low this year, with the number of applicants falling short of the number of available spots. 

It is the first time the Army will seek additional recruitment processes for cadets since the ROTC system was introduced here in 1961. 

ROTC is a college-based officer commissioning program, under which cadets undergo physical and military education for four semesters and then serve for 24 to 36 months in the military after being commissioned.

There were about 16,000 ROTC applicants in 2016, but the figure steadily fell by 2,000 each year to mark 5,000 this year. The competition ratio, which stood at 4.8 to 1 in 2015, plunged to 2.4 to 1 in 2022. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I knew a ROK Air Force lieutenant who told me he went ROTC simply because he could guarantee going into the Air Force and receive better treatment compared to being a conscript. He said the extra time in service was worth the better treatment.

Here is an update on South Korea’s efforts to create a drone unit that can respond both offensively and defensively against North Korea:

South Korean military drones fly during joint drills with the United States at Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, in this May 23 photo. The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday promulgated a decree for the launch of a multipurpose drone operations unit. AP-Yonhap

The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday promulgated a decree for the launch of a multipurpose drone operations unit as part of efforts to counter North Korea’s evolving air threats and to reinforce the capabilities that have become increasingly critical in modern warfare.

The declaration comes six months after President Yoon Suk Yeol told his military officials to create a command center for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strategies for both offensive and defensive missions.

The unit, which is expected to be established in September, will take direct orders from Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and take on reconnaissance, strike and other roles. Its presence in the military may well expand as its interoperability with other units improve, officials said.

But the location and leader of the unit have not been determined yet.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article the city of Pocheon just north of Uijeongbu in Gyeongi province is one of the leading sites to base the new drone unit at.

To be fair South Korea is far from the only country with a vulnerability to drone strikes. Militaries around the world are all struggling to develop defenses against this new technology that is being used heavily on the battlefields in Ukraine:

An incursion of South Korean airspace by North Korean drones exposed Seoul’s lack of preparedness in defending against such threats, and it will likely take years for the military to correct its shortcomings, according to a classified U.S. intelligence assessment of the December incident.

The findings, outlined in a leak of U.S. secrets circulated on the Discord messaging platform and obtained by The Washington Post, spotlight the vulnerable state of South Korea’s air defense as its volatile neighbor’s aggressive development of a nuclear arsenal has Seoul and Washington on edge.

South Korea has prioritized its defenses to confront incoming missiles while investing heavily in growing its air and naval forces, but Seoul’s focus has come at the cost of neglecting other air defense needs, experts said — leaving the country vulnerable to a threat responsible for extensive carnage in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is one of these only in Korea stories:

South Korean police raided the Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday as part of an investigation into a claim made by a former spokesperson for the ministry that a fortuneteller had been involved in the relocation of the presidential residence to Yongsan in central Seoul.

Investigators from the cyber bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency were sent to confiscate evidence, including vehicle entry records, to determine if the fortuneteller had visited the ministry’s premises in Yongsan in advance.

Former Defense Ministry spokesman Boo Seung-chan has claimed in a book that the fortuneteller was involved when Yoon was considering where to relocate the presidential residence and office in March last year.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but it should be easy to determine if this so called fortune teller was allowed to run around the Defense Ministry building with the video and vehicle records they have there. If they don’t find any evidence this will help with the libel complaints that the Yoon administration has lodged.

Could you imagine the amount of lawsuits if the U.S. had the same libel laws as South Korea? Cable news as we know it would have to end which would probably be a good thing.

It will be interesting to see how much these regulations will improve morale for troops eating in ROK military chow halls. I have eaten in ROK Army chow halls before and the food wasn’t bad, but if I had to eat it every day with no variety I can understand why Soldiers would complain:

South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced a new food service modernization program for this year that meets more of soldiers’ preferences, so that they could enjoy more varied options at barracks starting from the next month.

The new plan seeks to end the previous military policy of providing meals to around 500,000 enlisted soldiers based on standardized menus and ingredients that were unilaterally imposed by the military authorities without considering soldiers’ predilections for food.

South Korean troops have so far designed a daily menu to meet the allocated amount of food ingredients that must be supplied to soldiers. For instance, the existing food service program mandates that a soldier should consume 8.84 grams of white radish, 1.54 grams of green pumpkin, and 3.41 grams of napa cabbage per day.

But the new policy — which will be implemented this April — enables military units to independently select menus to reflect the preferences of enlisted soldiers as long as meal plans cover their nutritional needs and are within budget.

The South Korean military will also renounce its mandatory consumption rate of livestock products. For instance, troops are currently required to allocate 15 percent of pork loin and 22 percent of pork foreleg when stir-frying pork.

But according to the new program, the units will be able to freely choose livestock products within the budget.

The frequency of providing unflavored milk, which is not popular among soldiers, will be reduced. The military will instead supply flavored milk products, soybean milk and juice to soldiers to reflect their preferences.

The South Korean troops will also be able to provide various brands of processed food products, including tofu, sugar, salt and cooking oil. Military units do not have the option to choose brands as only a single company is selected as a provider.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Great to see this proposed missile about to go into development, but this mobile launcher probably should have been developed many years ago:

South Korea plans to adopt a basic plan as early as next month to develop a new advanced guided missile capable of striking North Korean long-range artillery pieces hidden in caves, the state arms procurement agency said Sunday.

The envisioned missile will be an upgraded version of the Korean Tactical Surface-to-Surface Missile (KTSSM), which is dubbed the “long-range artillery killer,” according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).

While the existing KTSSM system is operated on a fixed platform, the envisioned missile is expected to be run on a mobile launcher, which will enhance its maneuverability and survivability.

The current KTSSM has a range of 180 kilometers with its caliber at 400 millimeters. Its upgraded version is expected to be larger with a longer operational range of some 300 km.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.