Gaps in Surveillance of North Korea if Military Agreement Is Restored [Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club]

Forward-area corps-level UAV flights virtually impossible
Real-time surveillance impossible even with reconnaissance aircraft and satellites in operation

Concerns are being raised that if the September 19 Military Agreement is restored, the surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities of our military will inevitably fall behind. Inside and outside the military, the prevailing view is that, among the provisions of the September 19 Military Agreement, priority will be placed on restoring the no-fly zone, which is directly related to the recent incident of a civilian unmanned aerial vehicle infiltrating North Korea and to unmanned aerial vehicle operations against the North carried out under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.

The military reconnaissance satellite No. 5 was successfully launched last November from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, United States. Photo by SpaceX and Yonhap News Agency.

If the no-fly zone is restored, unmanned aerial vehicles at the corps level and below will not be able to fly in the forward areas. For fixed-wing aircraft, the no-fly zone is set at 40 km from the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the eastern region and 20 km in the western region. For rotary-wing aircraft, it is 10 km from the MDL, for unmanned aerial vehicles it is 15 km in the eastern region and 10 km in the western region, and for balloons it is 25 km. The reconnaissance assets capable of conducting surveillance are the high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle Global Hawk and the Geumgang and Baekdu (RC-800) and Saemae (RF-16) reconnaissance aircraft. Even these assets cannot provide 24-hour surveillance. On the 19th, Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Workers' Party of Korea, stressed that "the border line with an enemy state must, of course, be solid," meaning that North Korea would slip out of our military's surveillance network.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff also reported to the National Assembly in 2019 that, because of the no-fly zone, the target identification capability of our unmanned aerial vehicles deployed in the forward areas against North Korean targets had decreased by 44%. Before the September 19 Military Agreement, unmanned aerial vehicles used by forward corps were able to identify 713 targets, including North Korea's long-range artillery, but after the agreement, they could identify only 399 targets.

Military reconnaissance satellites are still insufficient. The fifth military reconnaissance satellite, which was last launched in November last year, is expected to complete its test evaluation and be operationally deployed in June this year. Once all five military reconnaissance satellites are fully operational, they will be able to observe North Korea at two-hour intervals throughout the day, but there will still be limitations to real-time surveillance. The military will inevitably have to rely on U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance assets. This is the context behind the Ministry of National Defense emphasizing the previous day that it would "consult with the U.S. side."

The reason the government is seeking to preemptively restore the September 19 Military Agreement, despite the degradation of our military's surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, is that there is no other effective means to move North Korea. The problem lies in changes on the North Korean side. At the upcoming 9th Party Congress, North Korea is expected to announce its own border lines and related measures in line with its "two-state policy." In particular, North Korea is expected to adopt a new parallel line of simultaneously strengthening its nuclear deterrent and its conventional weapons. This is being interpreted as a strategy of confronting the United States with nuclear weapons and South Korea with a massive build-up of conventional weapons.

A military official said, "From the broad perspective of a military agreement, we understand the government's intention, but gaps in the surveillance and reconnaissance domain are bound to emerge," adding, "It is also a question of how much more intelligence assets the United States is willing to provide."