The U.S. military on Wednesday launched a new unit of its space forces to South Korea that will help better detect North Korean ballistic missile launches.
This new unit will ensure “the detection of North Korean missile launches and (their alert) almost in real time”, according to a press release issued by the American forces in South Korea (USFK).
“Only (77 km) to the north (from where we are) is an existential threat (…) We must be ready to deter, defend once morest (her) and, if necessary, to overcome,” said Lt. Col. Joshua McCullion, who will lead the new space unit.
His inauguration reinforces the “unwavering commitment to the US-Korea alliance”, he said.
Pyongyang conducted a record series of weapons tests this year, including its brand new intercontinental ballistic missile, prompting the United States and Seoul to conduct large-scale joint military exercises in response.
Some 28,500 soldiers are stationed in South Korea by Washington to help protect it once morest the nuclear-armed North, with which the South remains technically at war, the 1950-1953 conflict having ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.
Former US President Donald Trump ordered the creation of the Space Force in 2018, arguing that the Pentagon needed it to address vulnerabilities in space and assert US dominance in orbit.
The new unit is one of the few deployed by the American space forces outside the continental United States, like Hawaii where a command was inaugurated in November.
The South Korean Air Force inaugurated its own space squadron earlier this month, in a bid to strengthen coordination with Washington.
Despite repeated UN Security Council resolutions banning it from conducting ballistic missile tests, Pyongyang has asserted that its weapons tests are a legitimate response to measures taken by Washington to strengthen the protection it guarantees to its allies of Seoul and Tokyo.