Korean Job Discussion Forums

[weso1]

ROK Navy to open up a small Naval base on Ullongdo to respond to Dokdo incidents.

But a much larger, full scale base to open up on Jeju. It will be able to host aircraft carriers. It will be built mainly to give SK a more rapid response to the South China Sea. Very cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdOUoFQa7ck&feature=feedu

[northway]

Isn't the latter base largely a US endeavor?

[fermentation]

Korea really needs to strengthen its Naval and Air power. But it seems weird to have a base that can host carriers when the Korean Navy doesn't have any and it'll be a long time before they will. Maybe it's so the US navy can dock its carriers.

[warmachinenkorea]

[weso1]

Per Stratfor (and those guys are to be taken seriously, no jokes) the SK military is seeking to be more independent from the US forces. Which is reasonable and understandable. The US doesn't actually want ground troops stationed here, at least not as many as we do. We'd much rather have them on floating fortresses where they can be more easily deployed to several locations instead of just stationary at one.

So, with Japan having the best Asian navy (second best Pacific navy behind the US) and China's navy always growing and becoming more aggressive, it's important for SK to start to better build their own maritime forces. The US is still a strong partner with SK and the big Jeju base will probably be built as a joint command base, but it's a big first step in SK becoming more independent on the sea. Already their ground forces are comparable to US ground forces here. They basically buy all their equipment from the US and all their Korean made equipment is a direct copy of US equipment. Their airforce is small, but on the way up as well. The navy has really been the big drawback to rounding out a complete national military.

But they haven't really needed it. I mean, the US has hands down, the most impressive navy ever created. There are something like 24 aircraft carriers in the world, most countries have 1, the US has 12. And we're about to roll out a whole new class of "super carriers" The Ford Class carriers. The US controls the world's oceans. Every drop of them. Nothing moves unless the US navy is okay with it. But it's beginning to be expensive to control and as more navies grow in the South China Sea (China, Vietnam, India, Japan, Philippines, etc.) it would be better for the US, SK, and Japan to have a stronger, more versitile SK navy that can respond to any incident that may arise.

[swinewho]

[Italy37612]

Maybe we could park a couple off the coast of Korea and turf them. We all know how popular golf is here. A mobile golf resort could be very profitable for the US Navy.