[Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club] Three Reasons Why the Eastern Front Could Be Breached Again

A soldier conducting an ambush operation in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the central-eastern front was killed by his own firearm discharge, prompting the military authorities to launch an investigation.

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The defection incident that occurred on the eastern front of Gangwon Province on the 1st has been pointed out as a structural problem in the surveillance system. The military insiders and outsiders share the view that unless this issue is resolved, similar incidents are bound to happen again in the future.

The 22nd Division, where the defection incident occurred, is called the "Graveyard of Stars." Following the 2012 "Knock Defection," the 2020 "Cross-border Defection," and last year's "Duck-foot Defection," the military appointed Major General Lee Seung-oh, an operations expert, as the commander of the 22nd Division in December last year. However, even after 11 months of his appointment, another surveillance failure could not be prevented.

Within the military, the surveillance failure problem of the 22nd Division is attributed to the fact that each soldier is responsible for too large a surveillance area. The troop size of the front-line surveillance unit (GOP) is about 12,000 personnel. The area these troops monitor is usually 25 to 40 km, but in the case of the 22nd Division, it reaches 30 km on land and 70 km along the coast. This is why there are calls to deploy additional troops or surveillance systems.

Minister of National Defense Seo Wook, while inspecting the readiness posture across the Korean Peninsula on New Year's Day, urged the battalion commander of the 21st Division's front-line surveillance unit (GOP) to "carry out the mission without falling into complacency." However, the defection incident occurred within a few hours. Some say that since his appointment, Minister Seo has repeatedly bowed his head due to incidents such as the shooting of a South Korean official in the West Sea by North Korea, surveillance failures on the East Coast, poor military meals, sexual harassment within the military, and the collective infection in the Cheonghae Unit, leading to remarks like "the minister's authority has not yet been established."

The final surveillance system is also problematic. The surveillance post through which the defector passed was a location where troops had withdrawn according to inter-Korean agreements. The withdrawal of surveillance posts was carried out through the Panmunjom Declaration on April 27, 2018, and the subsequent September 19 inter-Korean military agreement. Accordingly, in November 2018, South and North Korea completely destroyed 10 out of 11 pilot withdrawal targets each, and for one post each, troops and equipment were withdrawn but the original structure was preserved. The surveillance post where the incident occurred this time was one of those preserved posts.

Ultimately, although the defector was detected near the preserved surveillance post, it took time to apprehend him due to the absence of troops. There is an assessment that a shortage of troops monitoring the barbed wire fences in the Demilitarized Zone has caused some disruption to the military's surveillance operations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.