(Yonhap Interview) U.S. space commander warns it will be ‘mistake’ for N. Korea to test Seoul-Washington alliance

“It’s very difficult to predict what’s going to happen next to the DPRK. The key that should make people in Northeast Asia comfortable is, this alliance is as strong as it’s ever been, and it would be a mistake for anybody to challenge the strength of that alliance,” he said.

Miller was visiting South Korea for the first time in his capacity as part of a two-nation trip, including Japan, to discuss ways to strengthen their joint space capabilities on the back of a shared notion for the need to better counter growing space-based threats from North Korea.

In 2023, North Korea placed its first spy satellite into orbit and vowed to launch three more the following year. The South Korean military has assessed that the North’s Malligyong-1 spy satellite appears to be orbiting Earth without activity.

Just last month, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, North Korea fired what it claimed to be a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, which the North’s leader Kim Jong-un claimed will reliably deter any rivals in the Pacific region.

Miller, who served as a missile warning crew commander earlier in his military career, called such a development “concerning” but voiced firm confidence over U.S. capabilities to deter and track such threats.

“We have the most capable missile warning and tracking system on the planet,” he said, adding that efforts are under way to not only enhance such capabilities but also to begin to proliferate the missile warning and tracking sensors at an “unprecedented” level.

“There is no better missile warning or missile tracking capability than the U.S. presents, and we partner with our allies in the Republic of Korea and also in Japan on the sharing of that data.”

Against such a backdrop, the U.S. commander touted the South Korea-U.S. alliance as well as their trilateral security cooperation with Japan as having a “stabilizing effect” against potential threats coming from adversaries.

“While I’m concerned about that continued development of proliferation and destabilizing activity … I’m also encouraged by what I see as a growing and strengthening partnership here in the Northeast Asia, and I think that flows well for both nations,” Miller said.

Miller said he expected combined drills held between South Korea and the United States against space-based threats as well as the size of the U.S. Space Forces Korea to expand going forward.

“The only way to credibly demonstrate resolve and to promote interoperability is to actually do the reps and sets at the training and exercise level. And that isn’t just on paper … So I would anticipate expansion, because now we have people here to focus on it,” he said.

The U.S. Space Forces Korea was launched in 2022, in a U.S. push to build multidomain operational capabilities amid Seoul and Washington’s efforts to bolster security coordination against increasingly complex threats from North Korea.

Last month, the unit held the inaugural phase of the Polaris Hammer Korea exercise — a space warfighter inclusive command-and-control exercise — joined by South Korean Air Force personnel. The second phase of the exercise is expected to take place in conjunction with the annual springtime Freedom Shield combined exercise, according to the U.S. Space Force.

mlee@yna.co.kr
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