Downward arrow on left shows contended flight route of four drones crossing the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) from North Korea heading southwest over Gangwha Island, South Korea. Red line on right shows southeast heading of one other drone which also crossed the MDL, passed near Kimpo and followed a course along the Han River, entered Seoul airspace, proceeding to Yongsan and skirting the P-73a shootdown prohibited airspace before returning toward NK on a reverse course.
The actions of Yoon Seok-yeol have served to escalate military tensions on the Korean peninsula. His domestic public support is down at about 30 percent and stuck there. He is compensating with his faux military tough guy posturing (see our previous 12.28.22 post Screwing Up the Tension in Korea) and tit for tat retaliatory responses to North Korean "provocations." The truth is he’s incompetent in diplomatic and national security matters. His initial move of the Presidential Office from the Blue House to the former Ministry of National Building, has had a disruptive impact on domestic security as well contributing to the 10.29 Itaewon disaster. The terrain around the Blue where the prior prohibited "shootdown" airspace was centered was more conducive to early detection and interception because of its elevation and zoning (far less urban sprawl around the Blue House in the center). The presidential office move arbitrarily initiated by Yoon, had a cascading effect on emergency military readiness, by abandoning the already well organized and secure Blue House compound where the national command center was located. Moving onto the Yongsan compound where the MND building was located bumped the Ministry of Defense from their offices and caused the service chiefs of the armed forces to move from their building next door to other more remote locations. Movement of radars, ECM, and firing positions was required by the presidential move, which disrupted the preexisting air defenses. It also necessitated movement of the P-73a prohibited airspace over central Seoul to the south. That movement created a gap in the shoot down zone, that allowed the North Korean drone's flight to approach the presidential office in Yongsan and then return to North Korea.
Yoon has been lying about the situation and claiming that the shortcomings were caused by the previous administration not having a drone command nor practicing for such a contingency. Both assertions are untrue. The presidential office also blamed the Air Defense Command of the Army for the lapse. The ROK Army shot back with an argument similar to that above and a map of the critical airspace involved. At the outset of the presidential move, the Army ADC had objected to the movement of the prohibited zone to the south, recommended increasing its size from 3.7km radius to 5.7 km, and disputed contentions that new or different weapon systems could compensate for the gaps created over the critical national command center area by the move. While recent criticisms of the quality of North Korean reconnaissance had been made beforehand, particularly their photoreconnaissance, the flight path of the drone buzzing Seoul suggests they anticipated exactly where the gaps were.
So Yoon escalated by sending a drone into North Korea in retaliation and told his generals not to be afraid of nuclear war. The US never really supported the military agreements made by South Korea with North Korea to defuse tensions along the DMZ, the best that could be said was that they acquiesced at the time, reluctantly. The Yoon administration allowed propaganda balloons to be sent over the MDL into North Korea on at least two occassions, although this was made illegal after the military agreements were concluded with the north, and represented relevant provocations. It may be that some ROK/US military exercises, artillery firing near Paju, rocket-artillery firing in Cheoran County (both near the DMZ), air force exercises in the West Sea, etc., may have already violated the agreement, namely, in the buffer zones around the maritime Northern Limit Line and MDL restricting military operations. The joint use of artillery in Paju and rockets in Cheoran violates the spirit of agreement if not the letter. It's clear that the North regarded ROK and US artillery firing, and artillery rocket activities so close to the DMZ as provocations and responded with missile tests, artillery firings into the maritime buffer zones, and aircraft operations near the dmz all regarded as violations of the September 19, 2018, Comprehensive Military Agreement.
The Military’s Response to North Korean Drones Was “Altogether Incompetent,”
By Park Eun-kyung, Kyunghyung Sinmun, 1.6.23;
http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=202301061304427&code=710100&utm_source=livere&utm_medium=social_share
S.Korea begins major Hoguk field training exercise amid N.Korea’s saber-rattling; Korea Herald, Oct. 17, 2022;
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20221017000637
Explainer: What exactly is the inter-Korean military pact that might be suspended?
Hankyoreh, Jan.5,2023
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/1074576.html
Military Flight Restrictions Agreement Between Koreas Irks US, 10.13.18
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2018/10/military-flight-restrictions-agreement.html
"Screwing Up" the Tension in Korea, 12.28.22
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2022/12/screwing-up-tension-in-korea.html
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