(Bloomberg) — President Yoon Suk Yeol said he wants to put South Korea on a path of overwhelming military strength against North Korea and pledged to boost defenses against drones after his neighbor sent five across the border this week.
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“There can be no military that does not think of and prepare for war. For us to achieve peace, we need to prepare for war with overwhelming superiority,” Yoon said Thursday in a speech at the Agency for Defense Development, where he inspected unmanned aerial vehicle systems.
“As we saw in the war in Ukraine, asymmetric power has become a very important factor in the war,” Yoon said. “In response to North Korea, which is trying to strengthen its asymmetric force, it is necessary for us to reexamine the reinforcement plan for existing military power.”
South Korea Sends Drones to Kim’s Airspace in Unprecedented Move
Yoon has criticized South Korea’s response to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime sending drones into its airspace on Monday that flew for several hours and were not shot down. Yoon’s government sent drones across the border in response, in what it billed as an unprecedented deployment.
South Korea also unveiled a plan to spend about 560 billion won ($442 million) over the next five years on drones that include systems to bring down those from adversaries.
The country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff held an anti-aircraft drill on Thursday to shoot down small drones, which included the deployment of attack helicopters.
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