Changwon, South Korea
CNN
 — 

With a blinding yellow flash and a concussion that shakes bones, K9 self-propelled howitzers launch artillery shells onto a hill that’s simply been hit by rockets fired from helicopters. Then K2 tanks roar in, dashing up roads and firing as they go.

This is a part of DX Korea, a four-day South Korean protection expo held in September at a firing vary in Pocheon, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the North Korean border.

The show – offered to a crowd of two,000 individuals together with navy officers from greater than two dozen international locations – is a method South Korea sells weapons.

And President Yoon Suk Yeol needs to promote extra of them – sufficient for Seoul to jump four places up the ranks to become the world’s fourth-biggest arms exporter.

“By entering the world’s top four defense exporters after the United States, Russia and France, the (South Korean) defense industry will become a strategic industrialization and a defense powerhouse,” Yoon mentioned.

To try this, South Korea must outsell – in ascending order – the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and eventually China, which held 4.6% of the export market in the 2017-2021 interval, in line with the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

That’s no straightforward activity, but Seoul is already nicely on its manner. From 2012 to 2016, it had simply 1% of the global market. It greater than doubled that in the following five-year interval, capturing 2.8% – by far the largest enhance amongst any of the world’s prime 25 arms exporters.

In 2021, it bought $7 billion value of weapons abroad, in line with the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

And the South Korean protection industry believes it has the arsenal to seize a good larger slice of the pie.

South Korea’s weapons exports have ballooned in current years, however the nation has been constructing its arms industry for many years, spurred on by its troubled relationship with its northern neighbor.

As of 2020, navy expenditures represented 2.8% of South Korea’s gross home product, in line with SIPRI, nicely above the 2% threshold thought of a minimal by many US allies.

“The North Korean threat has given us a good reason, a motivation to make sure that our weapons are very good,” says Chun In-bum, a former lieutenant basic in the South Korean Army.

Technically, the Korean War by no means ended, as a result of the doc that stopped the fight in 1953 was an armistice, not a peace treaty.

In the first many years after the combating ended, South Korea’s protection was closely depending on American troops and weaponry.

Things started to alter in the Seventies, when the US was distracted by the battle in Vietnam and the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

South Korea started to take extra accountability for its personal protection and invested $42 million in US navy support in factories to supply M-16 rifles, in line with the Korea Development Institute (KDI).

By the finish of the decade, Korean researchers underneath the path of the nation’s National Defense Science Institute had succeeded in making all primary weaponry, in line with a 2014 KDI report.

With the ever-present threats from the North, Seoul initiated a National Defense Tax to pay for the improvement of a contemporary navy, together with the armored programs and different navy tools that Korean protection corporations are advertising as we speak.

Back on the hillside after the live-fire demonstration, potential prospects listened intently to the pitches of the South Korean representatives.

Delegations had arrived from as far afield as Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria and the Philippines. An Indian basic requested for the ranges of a weapon on show. Qatari officers inspected a K2 up shut.

Conspicuously, none of the potential prospects have been from Ukraine.

But that doesn’t imply South Korea’s arms industry isn’t seeing a job in Ukraine’s battle with Russia.

A US protection official advised CNN this month that Washington intends to purchase 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition from South Korean arms producers to offer to Ukraine.

The rounds shall be transferred to Ukraine through the US, permitting Seoul to stay to its public pledge that it will not ship deadly support to the war-torn nation.

In an announcement issued after the deliberate buy was first revealed in The Wall Street Journal, the South Korean Defense Ministry mentioned it had not modified its place on transport weapons to Ukraine, and that it believed the “end user” of the ammunition was the US.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had mentioned late final month that South Korea had determined to ship “arms and ammunition” to Kyiv, which might “ruin our relations” with them – a declare denied a day later by President Yoon.

A South Korean presidential decree that enforces the nation’s Foreign Trade Act says its exports can solely be used for “peaceful purposes” and “shall not affect international peace, safety maintenance, and national security.”

South Korea can be a signatory to the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty, ratified in 2014 with the intention of preserving shut management on who will get weapons and underneath what circumstances they can be utilized. Ukraine is a signatory however hasn’t ratified it.

But the deliberate US ammunition switch isn’t the solely manner the affect of South Korea’s arms industry shall be felt in Ukraine.

In September, South Korea signed a take care of Poland for its greatest arms sale ever, in which it should provide Warsaw with nearly 1,000 of Hyundai Rotem’s K2 tanks, greater than 600 of Hanwha’s K9s, and dozens of fighter jets from Korean Aerospace Industries.

The deal will allow Poland to switch lots of the weapons that Warsaw has despatched to Kyiv.

“Poland needed weapons to defend themselves, and that’s exactly what we’re providing,” Chun says. “We Koreans understand that without weapons to defend yourself, the end result is a tragedy.”

The fixed risk of a North Korean assault is one cause navy manufacturing strains have been established in the southern port metropolis of Changwon, the cradle of South Korea’s fashionable arms industry.

The metropolis is in a pure basin, surrounded by mountains on all sides, making it simpler to defend. The metropolis’s foremost highway, Changwon-daero, has a 14.9-kilometer (9.25-mile) stretch that may double as a runway in instances of nationwide emergency.

At its southern finish is the Changwon National Industrial Complex, established in the Seventies and residential to the Hanwha Defense and Hyundai Rotem factories, the place artillery items and tanks trundle off the meeting strains.

Overseas orders are rolling in this 12 months, notably the landmark take care of Poland which the Korea Defense Industry Association estimates to be value $15.3 billion.

Hanwha places its share of that settlement at $2.4 billion, its largest contract for the K9.

Poland is one in all 9 international locations – alongside South Korea, Turkey, Finland, India, Norway, Estonia, Australia and Egypt – to purchase the howitzer from Hanwha.

Lee Boo-hwan, an government vp of Hanwha Defense’s abroad enterprise division, says the firm needs to be a long-term companion to international locations that purchase its weapons. To that finish, it’s organising new manufacturing amenities in Australia, Egypt and Poland.

“My workers are very happy to share our technology,” Lee says. “It is our main strategic focus to enter (new) markets.”

It’s additionally about repeatedly updating and bettering the product, he says, and that’s occurring inside South Korea.

The firm has already prototyped the K9A2 tank, which situates the crew outdoors the turret to make them much less susceptible to assault, and is growing “a more futuristic, next generation version,” Lee says.

“It is fully automated operation, unmanned platform,” with synthetic intelligence to let it be taught on the battlefield, he says.

At a sprawling, fashionable complicated in Changwon, Hanwha’s robots churn out the artillery items for K9s at the charge of 1 unit each three to 5 days.

A mixture of robots and people mix on a seven-station meeting line to place collectively what is going to finally be 47 metric tons of metal, equipment and electronics.

One robotic, greater than two tales excessive, welds the turrets, the brightness of the white-hot process lighting up the cavernous meeting constructing.

Further down the line, one other robotic bores holes in the green-painted metal, switching bits routinely because it goes about its work with an accuracy of 1/one centesimal of a millimeter, thinner than a human hair, in line with a Hanwha Defense official.

Once the robots are completed, it’s the flip of Hanwha’s staff. Each hull because it goes alongside the line bears the photos of 11 of them.

“We provide excellence by name,” says Lee, the Hanwha government vp.

At every meeting station, there’s a “tollgate,” with inexperienced, yellow and pink lights. Any employee can cease the line with a pink gentle and summon engineers in the event that they spot an issue.

At the remaining cease is the bore sighting, the place the accuracy of the K9’s gun is examined on a goal at the far finish of the workspace.

The accomplished models then go outdoors for efficiency testing, inflicting the floor to vibrate as they roar alongside a paved highway close to their prime pace of 67 kilometers per hour (42 mph).

Test drivers spin the tracked howitzer a method then the different, the rubber pads on the tracks leaving donuts on the concrete.

As the drivers put the models by their paces, Lee explains how Hanwha customizes K9s for its abroad prospects: these certain for northern climates like Norway get additional warmth sources for the crew; these made for hotter locations like India or Egypt get extra air con. Some of the manufacturing facility’s K9s are headed for Poland this 12 months.

Jack Watling, senior analysis fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says South Korea is the excellent testing floor.

Its seasons vary from deep-freeze winters to monsoons and summer time warmth of 30 levels Celsius or increased – and it has each flat and mountainous terrain.

“That is a pretty unique set of complex variables in terms of having a vehicle that’s reliable across climatic conditions,” Watling says.

And that’s attracted overseas consumers, he says.

Just a couple of miles from the place the K9 artillery items are being examined, the K2 tanks at the Hyundai Rotem manufacturing facility are being put by their paces.

Again, the newest buyer is Poland.

“This is our first time directly exporting our (K2),” says Kim, the Hyundai Rotem VP.

Orders from South Korea’s navy preserve the K2 meeting line busy sufficient – however the Polish order means Hyundai Rotem can add capability.

This is actually like shopping for a brand new automobile off the lot. In the tank world, you may’t fairly drive your new K2 residence that day, however you get the concept.

“The most important thing is that it is currently being produced,” Kim says.

Hanwha Defense has its eyes on one market in explicit – the United States, the world’s largest protection market.

“We want to enter the US market with support from a US local company and also, we want to contribute to the US Army and the US local defense industry,” says Lee, the Hanwha VP.

In 2021, US navy spending was $801 billion. But South Korean weapons and ammunition exports to the US accounted for solely $95 million, in line with the US Commerce Department.

Overall, US navy spending was greater than the subsequent 9 international locations mixed, in line with SIPRI. South Korea ranked tenth.

But the South Korean protection industry must be seen as a companion that enhances its American counterpart, reasonably than competes with it, Chun says.

That large US navy finances consists of big expenditure on top-shelf gadgets. That’s not what Seoul is promoting, he factors out.

“There are portions of a spectrum of weapons that the United States does not make, because they feel they don’t need to. It doesn’t make a profit for their industry. That’s what we’re targeting. The systems that we have sold to Poland are exactly those kind of systems,” he says.

“I’m hoping that the United States understands that this is a partnership,” Chun provides.

“The United States makes the greatest and best weapons in the world,” he says, “but they don’t make all of them.”

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
 — 

The United States and South Korea launched 4 missiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday morning native time, based on South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The check was the allies’ second train in beneath 24 hours, following a provocative test-launch Tuesday morning by neighboring North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile with out warning over Japan in a major escalation of its weapons testing program.

The US and South Korea initially responded to the provocation with a precision bombing train on Tuesday, which concerned a South Korean F-15K fighter jet firing two air-to-surface munitions at a digital goal in a firing vary west of the Korean Peninsula, per the South Korean Joint Chiefs.

The allies usually reply to missile checks by North Korea with army workouts.

Wednesday’s launch included 4 ATACMS missiles, the assertion by the South Korean Joint Chiefs stated. Also often known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, such weapons are surface-to-surface missiles that may fly round 200 miles (320 kilometers).

According to John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, the launch was designed to display that the US and its allies have “the military capabilities at the ready to respond to provocations by the North.”

“This is not the first time we’ve done this in response to provocations by the North to make sure that we can demonstrate our own capabilities,” Kirby instructed CNN’s Pamela Brown on the “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

“We want to see the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) hasn’t shown an inclination to move in that direction, quite frankly he’s moving in the opposite direction by continuing to conduct these missile tests which are violations of security council resolutions,” he added.

On Tuesday, the US and Japan additionally carried out a joint response to the North Korean launch, with US Marine Corps and Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets flying over the Sea of Japan, often known as the East Sea.

Following a 25-minute cellphone name with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated North Korea’s newest launch posed “a grave challenge to peace and the stability of Japan, the region and the international community” and that Biden shared this view fully.

Analysts say there’s little the US and its allies can do to cease Kim’s relentless weapons buildup.

“The North Koreans are in no mood to talk. They’re in the mood of testing and blowing things off,” stated Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project on the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Failed US-North Korea summits in the course of the Trump administration have led Kim to imagine he can achieve nothing from talks, Lewis stated.

Since 2019 negotiations with former US President Donald Trump had been minimize brief with no settlement, the North Korean chief has laid out a program to develop missiles with nuclear functionality – and he’s following that timetable, Lewis added.

“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” Lewis stated.

Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, stated North Korea is making progress.

Every time the Kim regime launches a weapon, “They learn, they get better, they get more capable,” he stated in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.

Ankit Panda, senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated North Korea appeared set on a course to develop nuclear weapons.

“Denuclearization is now I think in the dustbin of history as a failed policy,” he stated.

“There is simply no practical plan at this point, especially in the short term, to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and to pursue denuclearization.”

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
 — 

North Korea fired a ballistic missile with out warning over Japan on Tuesday for the primary time in 5 years, a extremely provocative and reckless act that marks a big escalation in its weapons testing program.

The missile traveled over northern Japan early within the morning, and is believed to have landed within the Pacific Ocean. The final time North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan was in 2017.

This marks North Korea’s twenty third missile launch this 12 months, together with essentially the most ballistic missiles fired in a single 12 months since chief Kim Jong Un took energy in 2012. By comparability, Pyongyang performed 4 assessments in 2020 and eight in 2021.

Here’s what you need to know about North Korea’s missile assessments.

Tuesday’s missile flew a distance of about 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles), with an altitude of some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and a high pace reaching Mach 17 – that means 17 occasions the pace of sound, in accordance to Japanese officers.

By means of comparability, the US island territory of Guam is simply 3,380 kilometers (2,100 miles) from North Korea.

Two specialists instructed CNN these flight particulars counsel the missile fired was doubtless a Hwasong-12 – an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) final examined in January.

“This is a missile that North Korea started testing in 2017 … So it’s not really a new missile,” mentioned Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at CNS.

But, he added, its launch is important due to the gap it may possibly journey.

“North Korea has a bunch of missiles that are shorter range, and that wouldn’t go over Japan – but they have a small number of missiles that could make that journey,” he mentioned.

North Korea normally fires its missiles into waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula – making this flight over Japan significantly extra provocative, for each sensible and symbolic causes.

This form of unannounced launch may pose dangers to plane and ships because the missile travels down to its goal, since they might don’t have any prior warning to keep away from the realm.

And if the test had failed, inflicting the missile to fall brief, it may have endangered main inhabitants areas. The missile flew over Japan’s Tohoku area, in accordance to Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, which is dwelling to greater than 8 million individuals.

In the previous, US planes have been grounded as a ‘precaution’ following North Korean missile launches. And in late November 2017, a number of industrial jet pilots had been reported to have seen what appeared to be the re-entry of a North Korean missile because it approached the Sea of Japan.

However, Lewis emphasised, such dangers are statistically low, particularly that far out within the Pacific and that top above Japan because it flew overhead. Mostly, it’s an escalation just because “it’s provocative to fire a missile over your neighbor.”

“For the Japanese especially, it feels like a violation of their sovereignty,” Lewis mentioned. “If Russia fired a missile over Florida, we would have a fit.”

And, specialists say, it’s an indication of Kim’s ambitions for North Korea’s weapons growth – and of what’s but to come.

There are differing opinions on what might have pushed North Korea to hearth Tuesday’s missile.

Robert Ward, senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies on the International Institute for Strategic Studies, pointed to the a number of safety threats confronted by Japan, from an aggressive Russia to its north and China to its south.

“North Korea may be trying to exploit the unstable international situation, which it will see as a tailwind,” he mentioned.

Lewis disagreed, saying that though North Korea generally responds or retaliates to particular actions by Western gamers or teams, for the big half “they have their own schedule … and I don’t think that we have a lot of impact on the timing.”

There are additionally sensible causes; North Korea typically takes breaks in testing throughout the summer time when climate is unhealthy, and choose up once more as soon as the autumn and early winter arrive – that means now may simply be the suitable circumstances for a test, he added.

Joseph Dempsey, analysis affiliate for protection and army evaluation on the International Institute for Strategic Studies, added that Tuesday’s flight path may simply make for a greater test.

These sorts of missiles are meant for long-range targets – so flying it over Japan may assist North Korea gauge its accuracy over an extended distance, its potential to stand up to totally different forces exerted on the missile, and different components, in contrast to its ordinary “lofted” assessments – which journey greater in altitude and splash down west of Japan.

Kim had vowed earlier this 12 months to develop North Korea’s nuclear arms on the “highest possible” pace – and specialists say Tuesday’s launch is a part of that push for weapons development.

“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done,” Lewis mentioned, including {that a} nuclear test may come “anytime.”

South Korean and US officers have been warning since May that North Korea could also be getting ready for a nuclear test, with satellite tv for pc imagery displaying exercise at its underground nuclear test website.

If North Korea conducts a test, it might be the nation’s seventh underground nuclear test and the primary in almost 5 years.

There are additionally different missile assessments to watch. Apart from the Hwasong-12, North Korea additionally has three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) able to flying over Japan, although these haven’t been examined “to their full range yet,” mentioned Lewis.

“This is probably an appetizer for the main course, which is yet to come,” he added. “I would expect that when North Korea has more confidence in one of their ICBMs, they might fly one of those to full range over Japan.”

Leif-Eric Easley, affiliate professor of worldwide research at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, added that North Korea may very well be ready till after China holds its Communist Party Congress in mid-October to “conduct an even more significant test.”

“The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies,” Easley mentioned.

Pocheon, South Korea
CNN
 — 

US and South Korean mixed forces on Wednesday held their first live-fire exercises since the formation of their unit in 2015, a drill that commanders mentioned showcased the strongest army alliance on the planet.

The drill, primarily based on a counterattack in opposition to invading forces, comes after the US and South Korean Presidents pledged to step up army cooperation following a May summit assembly in Seoul, and after North Korea carried out 18 missiles exams this yr, in comparison with solely 4 exams in 2020, and eight in 2021.

CNN was considered one of two Western media organizations invited to observe the coaching.

“There is no stronger alliance in the world than the US-ROK (Republic of Korea) alliance,” Col. Brandon Anderson of the US Army’s 2nd Infantry Division and a deputy commander of the RUCD, the Republic of Korea United States Combined Division, informed CNN.

“The bigger the threat, the greater the alliance, or the greater the threat, the greater the alliance,” Anderson mentioned, earlier than US and South Korean tanks and artillery blasted targets simulating enemy troops, armor and positions on the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, tucked into the mountains north of Seoul.

The commanders didn’t particularly identify that enemy and mentioned their train was defensive in nature, however its location – the taking pictures vary is simply 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea – left little question over whom its message was aimed toward.

The South Korean commander of the mixed division, Brig. Gen. Kim Nam-hoon, mentioned the US-ROK alliance performs to the strengths of each events.

“The reason the CFC [Combined Forces Command] can perform the best on the Korean Peninsula is because of the harmony between the US capability and the Koreans’ knowledge on operation and geography,” Kim mentioned.

The two allies introduced this one-of-a-kind division collectively seven years in the past to capitalize on that.

In a command middle perched on a hill above the firing vary, US and South Korean troops shared focusing on data for the Ok-1 South Korean and M1 Abrams US tanks, in addition to calling in artillery strikes from South Korean Ok-9 and US Palladin batteries out of sight behind a hillside.

The command middle shook with concussions 5 seconds after smoke appeared on the mountainside it confronted, a couple of mile away.

The tanks fired concrete-filled dummy rounds popping up 600 meters [1,969 feet] to 700 meters [2,297 feet] in entrance of them. The rounds skipped tons of extra meters up the hillside after hitting their marks. That’s as a result of, in the event that they exploded like they might in an precise battle, the targets can be obliterated with the first shot, a US officer mentioned.

The US and South Korean troops within the command middle adjusted their fireplace as targets have been taken out and new ones appeared on the vary within the distance.

Computer screens flashed as targets have been hit. Other views confirmed tank crews loading shells into the tank’s gun, and its gun recoiling because it fired.

“Nothing says assurance like military training,” mentioned Anderson. “Both US and ROK forces have to be ready.”

And to make certain, US and South Korean forces are upping their readiness.

A live-fire train like Wednesday’s hasn’t been showcased since 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump put these type of drills on hold, saying such battle video games didn’t have a spot whereas he was engaged in diplomatic talks with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.

But Trump, and his South Korean counterpart on the time Moon Jae-in, didn’t achieve ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile applications. Their successors, Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol, have taken a a lot more durable line on the North.

With its missiles exams and harsh rhetoric, North Korea is exhibiting it’s not curious about talks, so mixed exercises like Wednesday’s are crucial.

And they’re a change from what the US army, a minimum of, has confronted in precise fight for a very long time, on condition that in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy’s weapons and ways have been fairly totally different from what a struggle with North Korea may entail.

“We didn’t stop looking at the Middle East, but we came out of how we fight [and] maybe [we] refocused on near-peer adversary,” Anderson mentioned. A near-peer adversary is one with comparable weapons, power numbers and ways.

“If we’re going to look at a near-peer adversary, we have to do more challenging adverse conditions. We have to do it with somebody that’s capable of inflicting damage on us,” he mentioned.

The US and South Korean officers mentioned they consider working collectively can restrict that injury.

“Interoperability is essential for actual combined operations,” mentioned Kim, the South Korean normal.

And the mixed unit is bolstered by 72 years of historical past working collectively, Anderson mentioned, harkening again to the 1950-1953 Korean War.

“We’ve been here since 1950s … It’s not uncommon to see second- or third-generation US service members on the Korean Peninsula. And I tell you that because I don’t know any other alliance that special,” he mentioned.