With the operational deployment of its second Aegis-class destroyer, the 7,600-ton Yulgok YiYi, in the East Sea last week, the Republic of Korea Navy has significantly increased its defense capabilities. The addition of the Yulgok YiYi means that the Navy now has 11 destroyers of 3,000 tons or larger defending the seas off the three coasts against enemy intrusion. In early 2013, they will be joined by a third Aegis-class destroyer, the 7,600-ton Seoae Ryu Sung-ryong, now under construction.

An Aegis-class destroyer has a powerful integrated naval weapons system that uses state-of-the-art computers and radars to track multiple enemy targets, numbering up to 1,000, and destroy them. Currently, the naval forces of the United States, Japan, Spain and Norway in addition to South Korea operate Aegis-class warships.

Linked up with the Navy’s first Aegis-class destroyer, the Sejong the Great, the three large, high-performance warships will establish a foolproof air defense network over the Korean waters from 2013, according to Navy officers. They compare the advancing capabilities of the ROK Navy with North Korea’s more numerous but largely dilapidated vessels, which include only three warships of 1,000- to 2,000-ton class.

Since the tragic sinking of the patrol craft Cheonan that left 46 sailors dead and the North’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island exposed flaws in the combined defense system in the volatile northwestern seas, the Navy has made utmost efforts to improve equipment and cut redundancies in the command system through massive exercises in the West and East seas. The deployment of additional Aegis-class destroyers with high anti-submarine capabilities not only increases defense preparedness but raises morale in the Navy.

Yet, caution seems to be in order against the Navy’s ambition of making an “oceangoing naval force.” That plan still looks premature, considering the pressing need for bolstering defense off the Korean coasts.

There is growing justification for the global role of the Navy from the need to protect the sea lane plied by Korean merchant ships, particularly against the threat of pirates. However, we have to focus our vision on the security of the three seas around the divided peninsula as we steadily build up our naval power.