By Zachary Keck
As noted on Flashpoints today, South Korea held its largest Armed Forces Day ceremony in a decade this week, parading around some “11,000 troops, 190 weapons systems and other equipment and 120 aircraft.” Among the impressive display was South Korea’s new long-range cruise missile, the Hyunmu-3, which has a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). In other words, it can reach all of North Korea.
This was clearly intended to send a message to Pyongyang. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, however, ROK President Park Geun-hye gave a speech at the ceremony hammering the point home to the North.
In the speech, Park said that, “against the backdrop” of North Korea’s budding nuclear arsenal, “it is imperative that the South builds a strong deterrent against the North until it abandons the nuclear programs.” She followed this up by saying:
“By quickly securing abilities to counter nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, including through the Kill-Chain system and the Korean Air and Missile Defense system, while maintaining a strong ROK-US combined defense system, I will make sure that the North Korean regime recognizes that the nuclear arms and missiles to which it clings are no longer useful.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat