Quote:
Originally Posted by Delgard
They have always wanted, for the most part, wartime control and they are on a track for that through making certain "capabilities" are attained. One, for hypothetical example, is to have joint interoperability among all air defense systems. It is a lot better if a radar, any air defense radar, be able to communicate automatically with any air defense interdiction system. The Army has one system, the Navy another and the Air Force has their systems, and their own sets of radars. That lack of inter-operability would be a serious weakness.
There are also noticeable challenges with ground firing systems (missile/artillery) that I have read about.
The Ministry Of Defense and its Chiefs of Staff know of these types of weaknesses. THEY were the ones that pushed for the requirements to obtain certain capabilities before assuming a larger role. The government agreed and the Americans, as the UN senior representative, agreed to those requirements. I am not sure of all the requirements and I am not sure the scenario above is accurate, but I used it as an example.
As a student studying the Koreas, off and on, since I was there in the 80s, I understand that the citizens take their rights very seriously when it comes to social or economic development, not necessarily military development. Although, they are putting more monies to the military in the last few years under President Park. But, alas, she is gone and a former human rights lawyer was voted in. Pres. Moon may not be as wise to how things can change overnight, and, his chosen Ministers are not as hardline. The military leadership knows what direction they must take, but funding is not going sufficiently or quickly enough to enhance capabilities at the speed that NK is developing their missile systems.
KJU just takes the money from his citizens and SK can't just do that. SK has raised their defense budget a bit, but, a bit is not very much. Definitely not enough to keep up with NK's nuke missile program.
Another thing that I have learned about their OPCON is that they have full authorities for Phase 1 (prepare) and Phase 2 (defense reaction to limited incidents), but not for all out offensive war (Phase 3). I am not sure where the lines are drawn, that is probably a close-hold type of info.
Anyway, The news last year? said the SK "citizens" had a hissy-fit about such a radar system (THAAD) even being in their country. To deal with ballistic missiles, even short range ones, ya' got to have radars with certain capabilities.
I think their are many voices in SK and the ones that have the wisdom are being drowned out. But, then again, why would the North Koreans want to attack South Korea? North Korea has far more anger against another country.
Last I heard, the agreement is that the SK military has to have certain capabilities before Phase 3 can be implemented unilaterally. Their military wanted that to ensure no political shenanigans changed the standards.
The Diplomat is a decent reference. Some good newspapers, too.
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I do believe that they have put forward for an extension to the ballistic missile range limit in response to the DPRK tests, their current missiles and cruise missiles are quite good in the roles that they're designed for, to engage North Korean leadership and communication capabilities in a decapitation attempt.
Moon, I think, was a bit of a dreamer, I think he thought he could bring back the sunshine policy, but now I think he's beginning to realise that the DPRK is only interested in a negotiation that recognises its status as a nuclear power and does not seek to alter that status. It's possible that he hopes that he could do some business along those lines, but when Trump and Kim Jong-un are fighting, Moon is small fry, he has no real power, he can't alienate the US (no matter how much the US might try) but at the same time he can't unilaterally declare war on North Korea (although many of his generals would probably disagree).
Of course, the problem with missiles, and I think that this is something that the US is also going to run into in the not too distant future, is that it is more expensive to build missile defence than it is to build missile offense. Until we find a way to create some kind of cost parity, or make missile defence cheaper and more reliable, then you're always going to find the problem that the enemy has more missiles than you can intercept, especially if you're salvo firing them a few per missile to maximise the chances of a successful interception. The US is going to find that with the Hwasong-14, I believe that there has been a motion to increase the number of missiles at the GMD in Alaska, but that will take time and money to do, in the meantime once the DPRK has built more than 20 ICBMs then a nuclear strike on the US mainland becomes dramatically more likely to succeed.
Of course, what's not helping is the absolute chaos that is the US administration at the moment. I feel quite sorry for Tillerson, the guy really is trying, but his boss is not helping. Even if it is Trump trying to utilise the 'Crazy guy' strategy as some have supposed, he's not exactly doing it with any level of acumen.
Still, we'll see what transpires, I've seen reports that the DPRK has been shunting their missiles around, they took some out from their development site the other day, and people tend to think that October 10th might see some activity, it's Party Foundation Day in the DPRK and about a fortnight before the Japanese elections, so the likelihood of some kind of test happening around then is quite high. Exactly
what the test will be is anyones best guess. I'm thinking a salvo of Hwasong-12s, myself, but they could up the ante and go for a full on Juche-bird...that would be quite terrifying.