Disrupted by drones

It’s time to calm down, check defense preparedness

Three small, crashed drones presumably sent by North Korea have touched off a noisy but inconclusive controversy in the South. Tracing back the course of debate over recently found unmanned aerial vehicles, however, reveals big holes in the nation’s defense posture and in the mentality of people who have shaped it.

When the first drone was found about two weeks ago, the military played down the rudimentary, rather crude reconnaissance drone, although it had photos of Cheong Wa Dae taken right above the presidential office. It said some private citizens might have flown the small aircraft, apparently to avoid responsibility for letting a dubious object fly over the Blue House.

Then came the second and third one, both equally elementary drones, causing the domestic media outlets, especially conservative newspapers, to noisily lament about the loose air defense system and ringing alarm bells about impending North Korean drone attacks. Now the military leaders are busy working out countermeasures, vowing to acquire low-altitude surveillance technology from Israel and Germany.

True, Pyongyang has recently begun to brag about its drone operations and threatened to hit Seoul with weaponized versions, to which the South Korean military turned a deaf ear.

As we see them, however, the alleged North Korean drones’ spying ability was clearly limited with its photos dimmer than those provided by Google Earth, and not equipped with real-time transmission functions, meaning none of those photos could have reached Pyongyang. These small, triangular drones might technically carry a chemical or biological weapon but never a nuclear bomb as detailed by the North’s propaganda machine.

What has turned the military’s response from intentional negligence to a noisy fuss was mainly some media outlets’ exaggerated spread of fear.

President Park Geun-hye fanned such concerns Monday. Citing various security threats from North Korea such as nuclear and missile tests and artillery exercises in the West Sea, President Park said many South Koreans are concerned about North Korea’s drones. It was the commander-in-chief herself who amplified public unrest by lifting crude drones from the North to the levels of nuclear and missile threats. Park also exaggerated the situation, saying the ”three” drones seem to have conducted full-range reconnaissance.

Yes, the government cannot overemphasize the importance of airtight defense, but what makes people more restless than a couple of North Korean drones is the rapidly changing behavior of their military leaders, apparently for no plausible reasons. It seems as if the top brass were watching the face of chief executive or public sentiment more intently than North Korea’s moves.

President Park and her national security team should realize not a few Koreans are linking their belated and exaggerated response to the drone discovery to upcoming local elections.

Forgotten amid the ongoing fuss are the real, existing threats from the North’s nuclear programs and long-range artillery, which cannot be compared with low-grade drones ― and the need for two Koreas to reopen dialogue to fundamentally solve all these threats. The korea times