By Jun Ji-hye
South Korea and the United States are moving to strengthen their joint exercises aimed at striking missile and nuclear facilities in North Korea in response to its continuous provocations, officials here said Thursday.
Tokyo is also seeking to enhance military cooperation with Seoul and Washington after one of the two Nodong ballistic missiles fired on Wednesday by the North landed in waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) after flying around 1,000 kilometers.
According to the U.S. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), a dozen F-16 fighter jets and hundreds of airmen have recently arrived in South Korea to participate in joint drills.
The South Carolina Air National Guard’s 169th Fighter Wing arrived at Osan Air Base, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, with more than 300 airmen and 12 F-16 Fighting Falcons ready to “fight tonight,” PACAF said in a statement, Tuesday.
Korean defense officials said the newly arrived U.S. fighter jets will carry out joint exercises with the South Korean Air Force as well as personnel of the U.S. Air Force stationed here to check their readiness posture and strengthen joint capabilities for better deterring the North’s provocations.
“Enhancing U.S. and Korean interoperability assures shared international responsibilities to provide assistance during regional crises and allows us to build cooperation and bolster regional security interests and goals,” Lt. Col. Nicholas Johnson, PACAF chief of fighter operations, said in a statement.
The U.S. Air Force also plans to deploy its B-1B bombers to the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, Saturday. The B-1B Lancers, which will replace B-52s there, carry the largest payload of both guided and unguided weapons of any current American bombers, and are capable of arriving at the peninsula faster than B-52s.
South Korea and the United States are also planning to hold an annual joint military exercise Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) later this month amid increasing tension on the peninsula. Pyongyang has denounced the UFG, together with the annual springtime exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, as a rehearsal for an invasion of the North.
The UFG is basically a computer-assisted war simulation exercise, but observers say that allies are also expected to conduct various fire exercises targeting the North’s major facilities during this year’s drill.
“There is a great possibility of various exercises taking place to strike the North’s major facilities such as long-range artillery bases,” Korea Defense and Security Forum senior research fellow Kim Dae-young told reporters.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday that Tokyo will handle the North’s provocations in cooperation with South Korea and the United States, after Defense Minister Gen Nakatani confirmed that one of the two missiles launched by the North appeared to have landed in Japan’s EEZ 250 kilometers west of the Oga Peninsula in Akita Prefecture. The Nodong has a maximum range of 1,300 kilometers and can hit targets on the Japanese mainland and Okinawa.
Since April, the repressive state has launched several Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles, with the sixth launch on June 22 considered to be successful. The North’s Korean Central News Agency claimed that the missile reached a maximum altitude of 1,413.6 kilometers and fell precisely onto a designated target 400 kilometers away in the sea.
In theory, the IRBMs, believed to have a range of 3,000 to 4,000 kilometers, can reach Guam, home to U.S. naval and air bases.