[Editorial] Government must be clear on US missile defense system

Posted on : 2013-06-13 16:34 KST Modified on : 2013-06-13 16:34 KST

Every time South Korea’s military authorities are asked whether they are participating in the US missile defense program, they always answer no. Instead they point to the “Korean Air and Missile Defense System,” or KAMD. But while the KAMD system they are building does consist of detection, identification, decision, and strike stages and is aimed at defending the country against the North Korean ballistic missile threat, they swear up and down that it is different from the missile defense program the US is leading - not that this stops them from asserting the need for intelligence sharing with the US.

Whatever they may be saying, their actions show that they are moving deeper and deeper into the US system. During a plenary session at the National Assembly a few days ago, Democratic Party lawmaker Hong Ik-pyo revealed that the South Korean military is taking part in “Nimble Titan,” an international ballistic missile defense training exercise with the US, Japan, Great Britain, and other countries. The 2020 round in the biannual exercise, which started in 2008, will reportedly consist of a joint response to a simulated enemy ballistic missile attack.

The South Korean military has also been holding annual naval exercises with the US and Japan since 2010, which have involved detecting and tracking North Korean ballistic missiles and sharing intelligence. The June 2012 exercises saw participation by the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and South Korean and Japanese Aegis destroyers. This past May, just after a South Korea-US summit, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier took part in combined exercises in international waters southeast of Jeju Island. It isn’t clear whether the military felt it had something to hide or not, but it didn’t reveal the exercises until they were reported in the Japanese media.

From the things US leaders are saying and the way the South Korean military is behaving, it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to say that South Korea is now an active participant in the US missile defense system. During a press conference after his summit with South Korean President Park Geun-hye last month, US President Barack Obama said the two sides were “investing in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together.” Last October, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said at a press conference after the ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting that missile defense was “an area that we continue to discuss in order to make sure that we have all of the defenses necessary to deal with the missile threat coming from North Korea.”

It is irresponsible for the government and military authorities to say one thing and do another when it comes to something as expensive, questionably effective, and primed to upset other countries - not least of them China - as the missile defense system. And it’s disingenuous to claim that we are not participating just because we aren’t installing a missile tracking radar like Japan is. The Park administration needs to clearly state its position on participating in the missile defense system.

 

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