Tag: ROK military

It is good to see the ROK military continuing to take advantage of the world class training offered at the National Training Center:

About 150 South Korean Army commandoes will leave for the United States later this month for joint training with the U.S. Army at the National Training Center (NTC) in California, officials said Sunday.

The special forces troops from a front-line Army corps will conduct joint exercises at the Fort Irwin training center for about a month as part of an annual training program the two countries have carried out since 2020 to establish a firm readiness posture.

It was the second time this year the two countries have held joint exercises at the NTC after some 100 officers from the Army’s Special Warfare Command staged special warfare exercises with the U.S. military at the training ground between June and July.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is good to see this change in tone from the ROK military:

 South Korea’s top military officer said Monday the country’s missile forces are capable of dealing a “fatal” blow to a potential enemy, in an apparent message of deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.

In a meeting with reporters, new Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Kim Seung-kyum commented on his visit last week to a unit of the Army Missile Strategic Command, which he said was designed to deliver such a warning.

“As North Korea has undertaken various strategic provocations and is threatening the Republic of Korea … I thought I should send a different message to the enemy,” Kim said, referring to South Korea by its official name.

“Missiles that our Republic of Korea possesses are at a considerable level. I thought (the visit) carried and should carry a warning message that (South Korea) is capable of sending a fatal blow to the enemy,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I think what President Yoon is preparing the ROK military for, is to strongly respond to a Cheonan sinking or Yeonpyeong Island shelling like provocation. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this, but North Korea seems due to provoke something in the Yellow Sea which has been quiet for quite a while:

President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered the military on Wednesday to swiftly punish North Korea in case of provocations as he presided over a meeting of top commanders for the first time since taking office.

“(The president) ordered our military to swiftly and firmly punish North Korea in the event that it carries out a provocation,” his office said after Yoon’s meeting with the commanders from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps at the Gyeryongdae military headquarters, 160 kilometers south of Seoul.

“He stressed that it is the military’s mission to defend the people’s lives, property, territory and sovereignty at all costs, and that we must firmly show our resolve to do so,” the office said in a statement.

North Korea has carried out a series of short- to long-range missile tests since Yoon’s inauguration in May and showed signs of preparing for what would be its seventh nuclear test.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Fortunately there are still plenty of people willing to fight to defend South Korea, but the trend from this survey is showing that the number of people willing to fight in decreasing:

Nearly seven out of 10 South Korean nationals are willing to fight for their country in the event of war, according to a recent poll.

The World Values Survey polled 1,245 South Koreans, 67.4 percent of whom expressed their willingness to fight for their country, while 32.6 percent were unwilling to take up arms to defend their homeland.

South Korea ranked 40th out of 79 countries polled between 2017 and 2021 when it comes to the percentage of the population willing to fight for their country in the event of a war, but the percentage of people who are unwilling to take up arms has been steadily increasing, compared to 6.5 percent in a 1981 survey.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the number would be if the people unwilling to fight did not have the option of fleeing South Korea to another country. Would they fight then?

It will be interesting to see if South Korea agrees to this because they would indirectly be seen by Russia as supporting the Ukrainians with arms:

The South Korean government has been reviewing the export of artillery shells to Canada in a bid to help the country replenish its depleted weapons stocks sent to Ukraine. 

Canada recently asked if South Korea is able to export 100,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition through a diplomatic channel, a South Korean senior official at the Defense Ministry confirmed to The Korea Herald on Monday. 

The South Korean official said the government has not yet formally begun procedures to proceed with the export. But the military has been reviewing whether it is capable of supplying the artillery shells in light of its weapons stocks and readiness posture. 

Canada made the request to fill up its ammunition stocks which have been exhausted due to its lethal aid to war-torn Ukraine, according to the official.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

To make way for the Presidential office in Yongsan the ROK military’s Joint Chief’s of Staff office will be moving to Southern Seoul:

The South Korean government plans to relocate the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) headquarters to southern Seoul and seeks to construct its new building there by 2026, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

In a parliamentary policy briefing, the ministry made public the relocation plan, as the ministry’s key offices have occupied parts of the current JCS building since the presidential office’s relocation to what used to be the ministry’s headquarters in Seoul’s central district of Yongsan.

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said that the government plans to move the JCS building to the Capital Defense Command in Namtaeryeong, southern Seoul, in the “mid- and long-term.” 

Lee estimated that the relocation and the construction of the new JCS building may cost between 200 billion won (US$ 157 million) and 300 billion won, much more than initially expected.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I would think the average young Korean male would be furious about the special treatment that celebrities would get with this bill. The celebrities that have already served in the ROK military have already been given largely special treatment as it is:

The ruling and opposition parties have discussed a need for swift review of a bill allowing K-pop superstar BTS and other prominent pop celebrities to substitute their mandatory military service for other public service, a lawmaker said Tuesday.

Rep. Sung Il-jong of the People Power Party, who serves as executive secretary for the parliamentary defense committee, told MBC radio that he and his Democratic Party counterpart recently discussed the need to swiftly review the bill pending in the National Assembly. 

“Since it is a matter related to fairness and national interest, I don’t think there will be any disagreement between the ruling and opposition parties,” Sung said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.