The U.S. military officially launched a space force unit in South Korea on Wednesday, December 14, 2022.
This feat will likely enable Washington to execute enhanced monitoring of its rivals North Korea, China and Russia.
The activation of the U.S. Space Forces Korea at Osan Air Base near Seoul came after North Korea test-fired a fusillade of intercontinental ballistic missiles intended to strike the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan in recent months.
Lt. Col. Joshua McCullion, Chief of the new space unit declared, “Just 48 miles north of us exists an existential threat; a threat that we must be prepared to deter, defend against, and if required, defeat.”
McCuillion made this assertion during the activation ceremony at Osan, in apparent reference to North Korea, whose heavily fortified border with South Korea is just an hour’s drive from Seoul, South Korea’s capital.
The unit belongs to the U.S. Space Force, which was launched in December 2019 under then-President Donald Trump as the first new U.S. military service in more than 70 years.
The Space Force was perceived as an affirmation of the need to more productively organize for the defense of U.S. interests in space, especially satellites used for civilian and military navigation, intelligence and communication.
An erstwhile Pentagon report stated that China and Russia had embarked on major efforts to develop technologies that could allow them to destroy American and allied satellites in a crisis or conflict.
The U.S. Space Forces Korea is a subordinate of a bigger U.S. Space Force unit established within the Indo-Pacific command in Hawaii last month.
Jung Chang Wook, head of the Korea Defense Study Forum think tank in Seoul, iterated that the U.S. Space Force was created to bring together diverse surveillance assets including space-based satellites in one organization to manage and develop them in an effective manner.
Jung intoned that its unit in South Korea would work like a field unit while the other one in the Indo-Pacific Command would be its headquarters.
“The U.S. Space Forces Korea would maintain, operate and asses related equipment. Simply speaking, I would say the actual U.S. space operations will be done at Osan Air Base.”
Jung Chang Wook
Jung added that the main role of the U.S. Space Forces Korea would be receiving, processing and analyzing tremendous amount of data and information transmitted by U.S. satellites.
U.S military is faster and better connected because of space
During the ceremony, Gen. Paul LaCamera, commander of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, commented, “The U.S. military is faster, better connected, more informed, precise and lethal because of space.”
“Specifically, the activation here today, of U.S. Space Forces Korea … enhances our ability to defend the homelands and ensure peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia,” he added.
The United States and South Korea have extended their regular military drills and worked to further bolster their combined defense capability in defiance of North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.
North Korea has threatened to employ nuclear weapons proactively in potential conflicts with the United States and South Korea.
The U.S. military cautioned the North Korea that the use of nuclear weapons “will result in the end of that regime.”
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