Japan, the United States and South Korea have a long, and sometimes troubled, history. (Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Military, civil and commercial cooperation in space will be among the myriad agenda items during the first trilateral summit among US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Aug. 18 at Camp David, according to government sources.
Driving joint operations between the two Pacific nations — each a key regional ally to the US — has been a goal for many administrations over the last 40 years. But historical enmities, especially around Japan’s actions on the Korean peninsula during World War II, have often stymied the efforts to make Tokyo and Seoul close military partners in their own right.
Which doesn’t mean the Biden administration isn’t game to try. In a July 30 announcement, the White House said “The three leaders will discuss expanding trilateral cooperation across the Indo-Pacific and beyond – including to address the continued threat posed by the DPRK and to strengthen ties with ASEAN and the Pacific Islands. The summit will advance a shared trilateral vision for addressing global and regional security challenges, promoting a rules-based international order, and bolstering economic prosperity.”
The Biden administration has been “absolutely working across the board” with Japan and South Korea, as well as other allies and partners in the region, to strengthen ties, one senior administration official said.
Bilaterally, the Biden administration has been pushing cooperation in space with the two nations.
Washington and Seoul signed a Joint Statement of Intent for Cooperation on Space Exploration and Science on April 25, during a visit by Yoon to NASA hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris. A day later, Biden and Yoon “committed to further strengthening the U.S.-ROK Alliance across all sectors and through multiple channels of space cooperation, in a joint statement following their April 26 meeting to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the US-Republic of Korea alliance.
The two leaders further “welcomed deepening space security cooperation, including the ROK’s commitment not to conduct destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing. Both sides will work towards advancing bilateral space situational awareness cooperation in response to growing space risks and threats, and ensuring a safe, secure, and sustainable space environment through further development of norms of responsible behaviors.”
Likewise, space cooperation was a touchstone of the Jan. 11 US-Japan Security Consultative Committee meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada.
“[T]he Ministers renewed their commitment to deepening cooperation on space capabilities to strengthen mission assurance, interoperability, and operational cooperation, including through enhanced collaboration in space domain awareness after the operationalization of Japan’s Space Situational Awareness system scheduled in 2023,” the two sides said in a joint statement. “The Ministers consider that attacks to, from, or within space present a clear challenge to the security of the Alliance, and affirmed such attacks, in certain circumstances, could lead to the invocation of Article V of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.”
Two days later, on Jan. 13, Washington and Tokyo signed the bilateral Framework Agreement for Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, for Peaceful Purposes; which was followed by a interagency Comprehensive Dialogue on Space in March 23-24.
Tokyo, for its part, adopted a first-ever “Space Security Initiative” [PDF] that not only pledges increased cooperation, in particular with regard to space domain awareness, with the United States, but also pledges to beef up Japan’s own national security space capabilities and expands the remit of the Japanese Self Defense Force to disrupt communications links and strike satellite ground systems being used by an adversary in a conflict.
The Defense Department in particular has been keen to build up military space ties with its allies and partners in Asia in the face of China’s rapid buildup of its own space capabilities, including the development of technologies that could hold US and allied space assets at risk in a regional conflict. At the top of the list for efforts is expanding and deepening space domain awareness as well as missile warning/defense.
And there does seem to be a willingness for Japan and South Korea to work together in this area. For example, the three countries agreed to link together in real-time their ballistic missile warning radar in the region to better keep tabs on North Korea during the June 2-4 Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, cementing commitments made at the November 2022 Phnom Penh Summit. The accord includes the establishment of working groups to sort through the technical issues involved.
“The United States, Japan, and the ROK are strengthening our interoperability and exploring ways to better share information about missile threats from North Korea,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in his opening remarks June 2.
The ballistic missile data sharing accord builds on the 2014 U.S.-Japan-ROK Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement [PDF] that opened the way for the three nations to share classified information on nuclear threats from North Korea.
While the accord did not mention it, such radar also can be used for tracking satellites and dangerous space debris — with Inside Defense on July 25 reporting that the US Missile Defense Agency this month will debut an upgrade of the Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system to directly link certain land- and sea-based radars to the Space Force’s Space Surveillance Network.
More recently, Space Force officials held two separate meetings with their Japanese and South Korean colleagues to discuss how to better integrate space capabilities.
Of the two, Japan has the more robust space program, including a bevy of dual-use remote sensing satellites, although until recently the country’s space budget was primarily dedicated to civil and commercial activities. Japan already has one key military cooperation program with the US, hosting space monitoring payloads on its Quazi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) satellites. The QZSS constellation is designed to augment GPS in the region, with three birds on orbit and three more planned, including the two carrying the US payloads although no launch date has yet been set.
South Korea, meanwhile, has been seeking to bolster its space efforts across the board, including developing its own launchers. Most recently, Seoul in May successfully launched seven small satellites, including a synthetic aperture radar satellite for imaging at night and through clouds, on its KSLV-2 rocket. The National Assembly in March approved nearly 20 percent boost in annual space spending to a total of 874.2 billion won ($674 million), according to a report in Space News. Of that sum, 95.4 billion won ($73.1 million) was slated for space defense, as a part of Yoon’s long-term military space strategy that is expected to cost some 1.42 trillion won ($1.09 billion) through 2030 — with an emphasis on remote sensing to keep eyes on regional military activities.
Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements, and Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, commander of US Space Forces Indo-Pacific, led the “first-ever Space Engagement Talks” with Japanese counterparts on July 13 at YoKota Air Base, Japan — a new series of formal dialogues “aiming to enhance combined space operations and establish a bilateral roadmap for future collaboration,” according to a service press release.
“The US-Japan Space Engagement Talks represent a further expansion of our strong alliance into the space domain,” Mastalir said. “Through these talks and Space Working Groups to follow, we can build a roadmap for cooperation to ensure safety and security in space for our nations and all responsible actors.”
On July 4, Space Force Col. Raj Agrawal, commander, Space Delta 2-Space Domain Awareness and Space Battle Management, met with officials from US Space Forces Korea and the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) at ROKAF’s third annual Open Space Forum.
“During the Open Space Forum, Agrawal discussed the importance of integrated civil-military SDA, the value of partnership between responsible nations, current threats to internationally established norms in the space domain, and space as a fundamental aspect of national security,” noted a Space Force press release.
