[이데일리 김호준 기자] It has been confirmed that the South Korean military is participating in ‘Sea Dragon’, a multinational joint anti-submarine exercise led by the United States.
According to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command on the 7th, the U.S. military began the Sea Dragon training on the 5th (local time) near Guam with the naval and air forces of Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and Korea. In our military, two naval maritime patrol aircraft ‘P-3C’ are participating.
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The Sea Dragon exercise, held every January, is under the command and control of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Corporation, and the maritime patrol aircraft of the participating countries track and search virtual enemy submarines (U.S. Navy submarines) with real maneuvers and conduct anti-submarine operations using computer simulations. . Our military only observed the training until 2019, and then participated for the first time in 2020. At that time, one naval patrol aircraft participated and conducted various combined anti-submarine exercises with the navies of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
However, he did not participate in last year’s training due to the spread of COVID-19. Some inside and outside the military pointed out that he could not attend because he was conscious of the inter-Korean cooperation initiative.
Experts observe that the Sea Dragon exercise contains the character of checking China’s advance into the Pacific Ocean, as it is conducted mainly by the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India security consultative body ‘QUAD’. It is also predicted that the trilateral security cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan will gain momentum in the new year by participating in this exercise.
Dr. Ankit Panda, a researcher on international security at Carnegie in the United States, said about the sea dragon training held last year, “The US Biden administration has implemented the sea dragon training, including allies and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, in order to contain China. By differentiating it from the (RIMPAC) training, it will be used as a mechanism to check the Chinese navy’s advance into the Pacific Ocean.”
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