South Korea seeks to strengthen deterrence, strike capabilities in new mid-term plan

Since the end of the Korean conflict, the two Koreas have maintained an often tenuous peace — defined by the promise of mutually assured destruction should hostilities bubble over.

While the US, Russia and China have sought to maintain the armistice for fear of conflict between the superpowers, the increasingly unpredictable North Korean regime, combined with the competing economic, political and strategic interests driven by China, has served to prompt a series of major strategic realignments in South Korea.  

South Korea’s response has been driven by two distinctly different factors, namely: North Korea’s continued pursuit of reliable nuclear delivery systems and the conventional manpower and firepower of the North Korean Army, and rising power projection capabilities and willingness of China to assert its influence over a number of contested territories and sensitive sea lines of communication in the South and East China Seas.

Accordingly, Korea has embarked on a series of acquisition and modernisation programs targeting each of the branches of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces playing a critical role in the nation’s response to its increasingly challenging geopolitical environment — with an emphasis on developing a conventional deterrence triad, namely through an enhanced multi-domain long-range strike capabilities forming a complex “kill chain”, defended by an integrated air and missile defence capability. 

To deliver this transformational capability, the Korean government has delivered a US$268.8 billion increase, amounting to a 6.8 per cent annual increase to the defence budget over the next five years — a dramatic increase in funding, aligned with a recognition that the balance of power, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but globally, is realigning drastically. 

Greater emphasis on strike, deterrence and missile defence

Despite an already impressive array of strategic capabilities across the Republic of Korea’s Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, this renewed South Korean modernisation effort is focused on knitting together a truly survivable multi-domain strategic-level, conventional “kill chain” that combines air-based, long-range strike, an advanced fleet of submarines equipped with conventional submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and land-based, surface-to-surface missile systems. 

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This offensive capability is to be reinforced by an incredibly impressive and resilient air and missile defence system, drawing together a range of missile defence capabilities, to be known as the Korean Air and Missile Defence (KAMD) system across the air, land, sea and space domains leveraging the technological and industrial prowess of the nation — in essence, mobilising the entire “hard power” scope of the South Korean economy to deliver national security and resilience in the face of rising tensions. 

Supporting this, the Yoon Suk-yeol government has identified four key pillars that will deliver this technology driven capability, namely:

1. Financial resources are allocated with a top priority on improving defense capability to build a great military strength that can respond to grave security situations.
2. The allocation of the defense capability improvement budget focused on constructing the Korean triad system to counter North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
3. The military strength operation sector concentrated on (i) drastically strengthening compensation for the fulfillment of mandatory military service, and (ii) improving the command leadership and service conditions of officers who have received relatively less attention, so that a substantial improvement in service conditions can be felt by soldiers and officers.
4. The unit plan sector secured the manpower necessary to build the Korean triad system through unit structure reform, while maintaining a 500,000-strong standing force.

South Korea’s strategic situation could soon be ours

This includes a rapid expansion in the capabilities of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, including the acquisition of new arsenal ships and Aegis-powered guided missile destroyers, expansions to the Dokdo Class amphibious warfare ships to serve as small aircraft carriers, a fleet of powerful new, conventional attack submarines and the introduction of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as the nation transitions to a fifth-generation force. 

Korea’s focus on establishing itself as a regional power capable of intervening in regional affairs serves as a model for Australian force structure planners — the comparable economic, political and demographic size of Australia and South Korea combined with the similarity in the platforms and systems operated by both nations serve as a building block for both interoperability and similar force structure models. 

As an island nation, Australia is defined by its relationship with the ocean. Maritime power projection and sea control play a pivotal role in securing Australia’s economic and strategic security as a result of the intrinsic connection between the nation and Indo-Pacific Asia’s strategic sea lines of communication in the 21st century.

Lessons for Australia’s future strategic planning

There is no doubt that Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically in the face of rising regional and global competition. Despite the nation’s virtually unrivalled wealth of natural resources, agricultural and industrial potential, there is a lack of a cohesive national security strategy integrating the development of individual, yet complementary public policy strategies to support a more robust Australian role in the region.

While contemporary Australia has been far removed from the harsh realities of conflict, with many generations never enduring the reality of rationing for food, energy, medical supplies or luxury goods, and even fewer within modern Australia understanding the socio-political and economic impact such rationing would have on the now world-leading Australian standard of living.  

Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia, this is particularly well explained by Peter Zeihan, who explains: "A de-globalised world doesn’t simply have a different economic geography, it has thousands of different and separate geographies. Economically speaking, the whole was stronger for the inclusion of all its parts. It is where we have gotten our wealth and pace of improvement and speed. Now the parts will be weaker for their separation."

Accordingly, shifting the public discussion and debate away from the default Australian position of “it is all a little too difficult, so let’s not bother” will provide unprecedented economic, diplomatic, political and strategic opportunities for the nation.

As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?

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