K88 by Andrei Pinkov (Kanwa news Feb 18) This month, the Defence Ministry of South Korea announced the five-year plan for national defence. This plan confirms that an investment involving 69.3 billion US dollars will be made between 2000 and 2004 in order to build a modern national defence system. To better equip the system, the ground-to-air missiles will be picked between the US Patriot and the Russian S 300 and sixty new fighter planes will be chosen among the US F15 and Russian Su35, the Eurofighter and the French Rafale for the final purchases. The mid-term purchasing plan for national defence includes importing three large Aegis-class destroyers of 7000-ton displacement and obtaining the unmanned reconnaissance planes. In 2004, the AWACS will be purchased. In addition, new-armed helicopters will be chosen for the final purchase between the Apache and the European Tiger.
The above arms expansion plan of South Korea is characterized by the following points that are worth attention. Firstly, South Korea seeks the diversification of its suppliers in order to extricate itself from the sole reliance on the USA for the supply of the major military equipment. In the meantime, it tries to further strengthen its military relationship with Russia so as to prevent the resumption of military sales between North Korea and Russia. In addition, the whole plan goes far beyond the need to confront the attack of North Korea. In fact, as North Korea now encounters an economic crisis and finds itself in an isolated position in the world, it has lagged far behind South Korea in the quality of military equipment. South Korea occupies an absolutely dominant position in the fields of submarines, fighter planes, tanks, large warships, and electronic warfare capabilities etc..
As the two Koreas don't face each other across the sea, South Korea does not need to develop the sea-based TMD or to import the 7000-ton Aegis-class destroyer to resist the threat of the ballistic missiles from North Korea. The combat radii of attack of all the new fighter plane candidates to be imported exceed 1000 kilometers. In case of war, the whole Korean Peninsula is undoubtedly within the coverage and so are Kyusyu, Honsyu and Sikoku of Japan, part of northern China, the Yellow Sea, and most of the Sea of Japan. It is obvious that the new five-year plan for national defence focuses on the expansion of both the navy and the air force. It is worth attention how this plan will directly upset North Korea and indirectly provoke China and Japan ( Kanwa news).
