North Korea has been carrying out a string of aggressive assaults against civil and military aviation around a key South Korean airport. While not what the experts consider traditional “warfare” methods, these “non-kinetic” provocations are just as serious.
Non-kinetic assaults
With technology advancing in leaps and bounds, military leaders are struggling to keep up with electronic assaults. Communist North Korea has been antagonizing their democratic neighbor to the south.
“These operations include waste-laden balloons, GPS spoofing, electronic jamming and cyberattacks.” It’s been disrupting air travel in and around Inchon airport. That’s the main hub of travel between Asia and the United States.
One of the big challenges for South Korea has been finding “appropriate countermeasures for these non-kinetic provocations.” In some ways, their hands are tied.
That’s because electronic assaults aren’t covered by the “Rules of Engagement” laid down by United Nations Command. They’ve been managing periodic flare-ups along the Korean peninsula since 1953, when the Armistice Agreement was signed.
Kim Jong Un has been pushing the envelope while Joe Biden’s still in office. He knows that Donald Trump won’t let him get away with it. Meanwhile, he ordered the railroad linking North and South Korea torn out.
The move is totally symbolic because it hasn’t been used in decades. The “Rocket Man” has also been up to his saber rattling missile assaults by launching a “new type of intercontinental ballistic missile.”
Friends with Putin
North Korea’s shiny new Hwasong-19 gets fired from a custom designed 24-wheel mobile launcher. His showy way of demonstrating it also hints that he got some new technology from Russia in exchange for the troops he sent over to help fight in Ukraine.
The whole world is used to his games by now but the new non-kinetic assaults pose much more of a physical threat.
Experts who follow these things are convinced that the whole reason Kim is carrying out the annoying assaults is so he can be bribed to stop doing them. According to 38 North, the increased tensions are “probably a tactic of ‘escalate to de-escalate’ to acquire leverage for later negotiations with South Korea.”
Meanwhile, planes are afraid to land at Inchon airport. Especially in bad weather. It’s not nice to jam communications or broadcast “false signals.” Those are “deliberately intended to confuse GPS systems.” Incidents have “been reported 578 times between January and August this year, compared to 39 last year and only 26 in the three years before that.”
As reported, “while some sectors of South Korea’s defense infrastructure are prepared to respond to non-kinetic threats, Incheon Airport—a vital hub for the ROK’s economy and international connectivity—is especially vulnerable.” The assaults in the vicinity have been quite effective.
It “underscores the need for modernizing security systems and coordination efforts at critical sites such as Incheon Airport.” Ships have also “reported suspected GPS jamming near the de facto inter-Korean sea border in the West Sea, the Northern Limit Line.” Those assaults last between minutes and several hours.
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