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ROK forces establish headquarters to upgrade response to North’s missile provocations

Felix Kim

South Korea has established a nuclear and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) response headquarters to improve coordination of counter actions to North Korea’s continued missile provocations. The command post will better enable Republic of Korea (ROK) Armed Forces to identify and suppress threats from Pyongyang.

As of mid-December, there had been 35 days of North Korean missile provocations in 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations — the most in a single year. These include test launches of short- and long-range ballistic missiles, long-range cruise missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and an intercontinental ballistic missile. Pyongyang also conducted 11 days of nonmissile provocations including seven artillery firings, three provocations by military aircraft, and tests of a rocket engine and nuclear detonation device.

“First of all, we must clearly recognize that the North Korean regime and the North Korean military, which have threatened our country and people through various provocations, are our enemies,” South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup told lawmakers in December 2022. “We must cultivate the conviction of victory and a strong military spirit that we will protect our families with our own hands and fight the enemy without fail.”

The headquarters — expected to begin operating in January 2023 — will be the hub for a new strategic command to oversee South Korea’s three-axis defense system. The system consists of the Kill Chain to preemptively strike North Korean missile sites if an imminent attack is detected, the Korean Air and Missile Defense, and the Korean Massive Punishment and Retaliation to incapacitate North Korean leadership if hostilities begin, Park Yong-han, an associate research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses’ Center for Security and Strategy, told FORUM.

The establishment of the new command fulfills a campaign promise of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The response headquarters, which is built on the foundation of the existing response center, is expected to have a workforce similar in size to the four Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters, which include information, operations, strategic planning and military support. (Pictured: ROK Army vehicles prepare for an exercise near the Demilitarized Zone in Yeoncheon, South Korea, in December 2022.)

“As North Korean nuclear and WMD threats have recently advanced, the organization’s role and importance have grown, and its size has grown to become the headquarters,” Park said. “This is the context behind it.

“We need to respond by integrating various capabilities and assets of the Army, Navy and Air Force to produce more effective results. That’s why the organization is getting bigger and bigger,” he said.

In addition to identifying threats from North Korea, the headquarters will establish strategies for neutralizing such threats.

 

Felix Kim is a FORUM contributor reporting from Seoul, South Korea.

 

IMAGE CREDIT: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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