Will South Korea, the US, and Japan Conduct Public Missile Alert Drills?

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] South Korea, the United States, and Japan are expected to publicly conduct missile warning exercises. Although the missile warning exercises among the three countries have been conducted quarterly, since 2018, considering the reconciliation atmosphere among South Korea, North Korea, and the United States, it is known that the exercises have not been disclosed externally.

According to the Ministry of National Defense on the 11th, Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-seop held a trilateral defense ministers' meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, where the Asia Security Conference (Shangri-La Dialogue) was held.

After the meeting, Minister Lee told reporters, "We mainly shared a mutual understanding of the importance of trilateral security cooperation among South Korea, the United States, and Japan in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats," adding, "It was an opportunity to confirm our willingness to cooperate."

He explained, "We discussed the trilateral military exercises at a comprehensive level," and "There were specific talks about missile warning exercises and ballistic missile tracking and surveillance (exercises)."

The three ministers likely discussed ways to strengthen existing exercises such as missile warning drills to send a warning message to North Korea, which continues provocations.

However, regarding the trilateral combined military exercises where troops from the three countries gather in one place for maneuvers, Minister Lee drew a line by saying, "South Korea-U.S. military exercises and South Korea-U.S.-Japan military exercises are different," and "They should be approached differently." The last time the defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States, and Japan gathered in one place was at the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) in November 2019.