Stars and Stripes
The president of South Korea this week opposed the removal of U.S. air defense systems from his country to the Middle East but said doing so will not significantly affect Seoul’s ability to deter Pyongyang.
“While we have expressed opposition to the possible redeployment” of some U.S. air defense assets, “the reality is that we cannot fully impose our position,” President Lee Jae Myung said at a Tuesday cabinet meeting livestreamed online.
The Pentagon is moving parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system from South Korea to the Middle East, according to unnamed officials quoted by The Washington Post that day.
The military is also drawing on Patriot interceptors in the Indo-Pacific to counter Iranian drone and missile threats, the officials said in the report.
The U.S. was rushing to replace a THAAD radar — critical to shooting down ballistic missiles — that was damaged in an Iranian-backed drone strike in Jordan, according to an unnamed U.S. official quoted March 6 by the Wall Street Journal.
“For operational security reasons, we do not comment on the movement of specific military capabilities or assets,” the Pentagon and U.S. Forces Korea said in statements emailed Wednesday to Stars and Stripes. “United States Forces Korea remains focused on maintaining a combat-credible force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”
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