SEOUL – When Washington and Seoul warned earlier this year that North Korea was planning its seventh nuclear weapons test, most South Koreans barely blinked. Many in the South have become so accustomed to the rattle of North Korean weapons that they often dismiss the country’s frequent military provocations as predictable attempts to attract attention.
But this week, North Korea was able to shake the steely nerves of many South Koreans with a weapon much cheaper and less advanced than a nuclear warhead.
On Monday, five North Korean drones flying no faster than a speeding car flew through South Korean airspace for five hours — one of them reaching north of Seoul, the capital — before returning to North Korea or from the South’s military radar disappeared. The drones were so unexpected that the South was forced to scramble everything from state-of-the-art fighter jets and modern attack helicopters to propeller-driven warplanes.
While this wasn’t the first time North Korean drones have invaded South Korean airspace, following Monday’s breakthrough, many South Koreans have taken to social media to express concern about their country’s vulnerability to drone strikes at a time when tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising.
South Korea was put on alert for a second time on Tuesday as fighter jets took off again, in response to what military officials initially thought could be another wave of North Korean drones. The government sent emergency text messages advising already frightened residents at the border to watch out for “unmanned aerial vehicles”.
North Korean missile tests
The drones turned out to be a flock of birds.
The South Korean military issued a rare public apology: “Our military detected and pursued the five enemy drones but was unable to shoot them down. We are sorry,” Lieutenant General Kang Shin-chul said on Tuesday. “The lack of preparedness of our army has caused a lot of concern to the people.”
Lieutenant General Kang pledged to increase vigilance against North Korean drones and aggressively deploy weapons to “hunt and destroy” them. South Korean fighter jets were again dispatched on Wednesday to tackle an unidentified object in the sky. This time it turned out to be a balloon.
Fears of North Korean drones are fueled in part by a long history of inter-Korean hostilities. The two Koreas clashed in naval combat in 1999 and 2002. In 2010, 46 sailors were killed when a South Korean naval ship sank in what the South called a North Korean torpedo attack. Later that year, the North launched a barrage of missiles on a South Korean border island, killing four people. The South launched a counter artillery assault across the border.
South Korea has been alert to North Korean provocations for months. This year, the North has conducted a record number of missile tests, proudly claiming to be able to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons. The Allies have responded by expanding joint military exercises, which in turn have pushed the North to accelerate weapons development.
North Korea, suffering from a chronic shortage of fuel and spare parts for its armed forces, has attempted to tip the balance of military prowess against the South by developing an arsenal of nuclear missiles. But the impoverished country has also deployed low-cost weapons such as drones, using them as surveillance tools and airstrikes based on Chinese and US drone models smuggled in from abroad. Military analysts in South Korea estimate that the country may have up to 1,000.
North Korea has displayed some of its drones during military parades. It has also demonstrated its drone capabilities by flying a swarm of them at nighttime air shows in recent years.
South Koreans first witnessed the threat of North Korean drones when two of them were found after crashing in the south in 2014. From the digital camera mounted on one of them, officials retrieved 193 aerial photos, some of which showed the presidential office in Seoul. South Koreans were shocked that North Korean drones had entered the border unnoticed.
The camera mounted on a North Korean drone that crashed in 2017 showed it had flown deeper south, around a US missile defense base in southeastern South Korea.
The South Korean military said it was able to detect the five North Korean drones Monday before they crossed the border, but had difficulty tracking the small unmanned aerial vehicle with its radar. The drones also flew close to South Korean villages, making them difficult to shoot down without endangering the safety of residents on the ground, officials said. A senior presidential aide told reporters Wednesday that chasing drones with fighter jets was like “deploying artillery to try and kill a fly.”
Critics of South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol accuse his government of incompetence.
Mr Yoon’s office said it was on the orders of the president that South Korea sent its own drones across the border into North Korean airspace on Monday. Mr Yoon’s defense ministry said it would spend 550 billion won ($434 million) over the next five years to build weapons that can detect and destroy drones.
For his part, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un spent the week at North Korea’s Workers’ Party meeting where he set “new nuclear targets” for an ambitious arms buildup by 2023, North state media said. Wednesday.
