Korea, U.S., Japan hold 1st trilateral missile defense drills of 2023

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Korea, U.S., Japan hold 1st trilateral missile defense drills of 2023

Published: 22 Feb. 2023, 18:03

From right: the ROKS Sejong the Great, the USS Barry and the JS Atago participate in a trilateral missile defense exercise by South Korea, United States and Japan in the East Sea on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

South Korea, the United States and Japan held their first trilateral missile defense exercise of the year on Wednesday.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the exercise took place in international waters east of South Korea’s Ulleung Island and involved three destroyers equipped with Aegis combat systems: ROKS Sejong the Great from South Korea, the USS Barry from the United States and the JS Atago from Japan.

The three countries practiced procedures to detect and track computer-simulated missile targets, as well as share information.

Only the USS Barry practiced intercepting missiles, a South Korean defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

In its press release, the JCS said the three countries “strengthened security cooperation and further shored up their response systems” through their joint missile defense exercise.

The previous trilateral missile defense exercise took place in October.

Wednesday’s exercise comes amid high tensions on the Korean Peninsula after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, warned that the Pyongyang would “watch every movement of the enemy and take corresponding and very powerful and overwhelming counteraction against its every move hostile to us” in a statement released by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency.

Kim also said the North could turn the Pacific into its missile “firing range.”

The North launched a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on Saturday and two short-range ballistic missiles on Monday. All three missiles landed in the East Sea.

South Korea and the United States are also scheduled to hold a table-top exercise at the Pentagon on Wednesday, where South Korean and U.S. government and military officials will discuss their response to hypothetical scenarios where North Korea uses nuclear weapons and missiles.

Deputy Defense Minister for Policy Heo Tae-keun will lead the South Korean contingent at the exercise, while the U.S. side will be led by Siddharth Mohandas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, and Richard Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and countering weapons of mass destruction policy.

Defense officials in Seoul said the exercise will also involve discussions of crisis management and military response measures, as well as ways to strengthen the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea.

Extended deterrence refers to the U.S. pledge to use all of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend South Korea if it comes under attack.

Exercise participants are scheduled to visit the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia on Thursday. The base is home to several of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines, which comprise a key component of U.S. nuclear deterrence capabilities.

Table-top exercises by South Korea and the United States began in 2011, but took place only twice under the previous Moon Jae-in administration, which scaled back various joint exercises to avoid angering North Korea as it pursued inter-Korean rapprochement.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]