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| South Korean Army's self-propelled howitzers move in Yeoncheon, near the border with North Korea, Monday, for joint drills with the U.S. military. AP-Yonhap |
North Korea's first cruise missile launches from submarine should concern Seoul: expert
By Jung Min-ho
South Korea and the United States launched massive joint military exercises on Monday, as North Korea ratcheted up the threat level by conducting its first submarine-launched cruise missile tests in protest of the drills.
The computer simulation-based Freedom Shield exercise began its 11-day run on a scale not seen since 2017, in order to reinforce the allies' defense capabilities and interoperability amid North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threats.
The exercise, for which the U.S. is expected to deploy some of its most formidable strategic assets such as a nuclear-powered aircraft, includes 20 field training plans with realistic war scenarios. Progress in North Korea's weapons capabilities and Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine were factored into the scenarios, military officials said.
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| This photo shows South Korean and U.S. troops participating in combined drills in Yeoncheon, near the border with North Korea, Monday. Yonhap |
Freedom Shield will "integrate elements of live exercises with constructive simulations" and aims to enhance the South Korean and U.S. militaries' "cooperation through air, land, sea, space, cyber and special operations," according to a statement issued by U.S. Forces Korea. But the details remain undisclosed.
The exercise plan apparently unnerved North Korea, which announced the same day that it launched two cruise missiles from a submarine off its east coast the previous day.
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| This photo released Monday by North Korea shows a cruise missile being launched by a submarine in waters off North Korea's eastern coast on Sunday. Yonhap |
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) called the missiles "strategic" ― a term typically used to describe weapons that have nuclear capabilities ― and claimed that it verified the reliability of the weapons through the tests.
KCNA claimed the missiles precisely hit their targets 1,500 kilometers away after drawing figure-eight-shaped patterns, and the tests proved North Korea's diversified war deterrence capabilities.
If correct, that means the North is now capable of striking with cruise missiles any place in South Korea and some of Japan's strategically important areas, such as U.S. military bases in Okinawa, from constantly-moving underwater platforms. Cruise missiles are more difficult to detect by radar and possess greater accuracy than ballistic missiles. This should concern South Korea's military, a defense expert said.
"Although it is still unclear whether the missile can carry nuclear weapons in its tip as North Korea claims, this is a significant threat to the military, especially given that it isn't equipped with sufficient detection technology for and offense capabilities against the North's submarines," Shin Jong-woo, an analyst at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, a think tank, told The Korea Times.
"Once out in the ocean, submarines are very difficult to detect. So the best way to deal with the threat is to send, if possible, nuclear-powered attack submarines to the key locations before the armed North Korean submarines leave their bases … It's time, if not too late already, to discuss how to respond to such threats realistically."
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| This photo released Monday by North Korea shows a submarine during its missile drills in waters off North Korea's eastern coast on Sunday. Yonhap |
Last May, the North test-fired a short-range ballistic missile from the same submarine. Many experts said it would take years for the regime to build a fleet of several submarines capable of high-level strikes. North Korea has reportedly been building a new 3,000-ton submarine that can carry three submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It already has an estimated 70-90 diesel-powered submarines ― one of the world's largest fleets. But they are mostly aging and capable of only launching torpedoes but not missiles.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) confirmed that the North's cruise missiles were fired from a submarine in waters near the port city of Sinpo, where its major submarine-building shipyard is located. But the JCS believes that the test results may have been exaggerated, saying its submarine missile technology seems to still be in its "early stages."
In recent years, North Korea has been trying to improve and diversify its missile platforms in an apparent aim to undermine the allies' response capabilities. Experts warn that the North could unleash additional provocations in the coming days during the combined exercises.
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