A senior U.S. Army official on Thursday highlighted the importance of military maintenance and logistics cooperation with South Korea, calling it a “win-win” effort that will help ensure deterrence.
Speaking at a forum, Douglas Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, asserted the need for more attention to the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) aspect, an area eclipsed by publicized programs to buy or develop flashy weapons systems.
“If we are fighting there, we are going to have to repair equipment in a sustained conflict. Being able to do that and having practiced doing it … is really kind of a combat rehearsal that increases deterrence and increases readiness,” he said at a forum held at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“There are many benefits, including saving money,” he added.
For the United States, 70 percent of the cost of its weapon systems is in sustainment, repair and maintenance over time, he added, noting pos
sibilities for greater cooperation with South Korea in the MRO field.
His remarks came as questions have lingered over whether the U.S. can effectively sustain combat operations far away from its mainland, particularly in the event of a contingency across the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere in the broader Indo-Pacific.
“The importance of having things forward with our allies on the ground in place rather than having to rely on very long supply chains back to the U.S., especially in a conflict, and building up those stocks, repair parts, repair capability and ammunition stores is both deterrence but also would help overcome fighting a sophisticated enemy who attacked our supply chains and our supply routes,” he said.
He cast cooperation with allies in the maintenance and logistics realms as “really a win-win.”
“It helps ensure that we have things right there where we need it on the ground. That logistics cooperation is as essential a part of preparing for war as training together on how to fight,” he said.
As
for future areas of defense industry cooperation with South Korea, Bush pointed out unmanned aircraft and ground robotics.
“We are trying to go as fast as we can to take advantage of drones and new unmanned aircraft technologies … Also ground robotics, an increasing area of interest for the U.S. because of what we are seeing in Ukraine. We want to make a major effort to have more ground robotics in our formations,” he said.
“Those two together could both be critical ares of cooperation (with South Korea).”
In response, Seok Jong-gun, the minister of South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration, highlighted the growing need for South Korea to employ unmanned systems due to the nation’s chronically low birth rate.
“We are facing North Korean threats and we have a very low birth rate,” he said. “It’s very hard to have enough forces and human resources … We have to apply that to the weapon system and use that as a game changer in our battlefield environment.”
Bush touted South Korea’s defense
manufacturing technology, saying the U.S. has to learn from Korea as it tries to rebuild its own capacity.
Source: Yonhap News Agency