South Korea showcases missiles, drones and tanks in rare military

parade

South Korea showcased an arsenal of advanced weaponry in a military parade on

Tuesday, rolling tanks and missiles down the streets of its rain-soaked capital during the �irst
event of its kind in a decade. The parade, held to mark the 75th Armed Forces Day
commemorating the founding of the country’s armed forces, comes against the backdrop of
rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, as South Korea draws closer to the United States and
Japan against the threat of North Korea’s accelerating weapons program.
The event kicked off in the morning with ceremonies and performances at the Seoul
Air Base, where President Yoon Suk Yeol delivered an address warning Pyongyang against ever
using nuclear weapons. “If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an
end by an overwhelming response from the (Seoul-Washington) alliance,” Yoon said, speaking
in the rain.
Later on Tuesday, North Korea’s United Nations Ambassador Kim Song claimed
Pyongyang had been “urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of (its) self-defense
capabilities,” saying the Korean Peninsula was moving “closer to the brink of a nuclear war.”
Speaking in New York at the UN General Assembly, Kim accused the US of spreading its
in�luence across the world, particularly across the Korean Peninsula.

The military parade – a �irst for South Korea since 2013 – followed in the afternoon,
with troops and military equipment rolling through the heart of Seoul, passing by the city hall
and historic Gwanghwamun Square. The roads were lined with spectators, many wearing
plastic ponchos and holding umbrellas in the rain. Several thousand South Korean soldiers and
more than 300 US troops marched during the event, according to the Ministry of National
Defense. Other performances included a military band, �lag-bearers, and mascots from each
military unit.
On display were a variety of homegrown equipment including drones, tanks and
armored personnel carriers. Soldiers in vehicles waved to the crowd as they passed by; several
carriers had the South Korean �lag af�ixed to the exterior. Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the
Grif�ith Asia Institute at Grif�ith University, said while the parade served to send “a message to
an external audience,” including partners like the United States and regional powers such as
North Korea and China, the event “is really about domestic factors.”

The parade and Yoon’s presence “help portray (South) Korea to the Korean people that
the country is now an important power on the world stage, a pivotal global power as the
current president calls it,” he said. It also boosts public perception of the Korean defense
industry, which is “achieving remarkable export success” while other economic sectors fall �lat,
he added.

Yoon has previously stated his goal to make South Korea one of the world’s top four
arms exporters, after the US, Russia and France. While it’s still a few places away in the
rankings, the industry has grown rapidly, with $7 billion of defense exports in 2021, according
to the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

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 Layton added that the parade also underscores South Korea’s enduring alliance with
the US – with the two countries drawing closer, as well as with Japan, as North Korea ramps up
its weapons testing. International intelligence has also suggested since last year that
Pyongyang may be preparing to resume nuclear testing, with satellite imagery showing activity
at its underground nuclear test site.

In April this year, Yoon and US President Joe Biden announced a key new agreement
that aims to deter North Korean aggression, including a new US commitment to deploy a
nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea for the �irst time since the early 1980s.

Yoon, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also held a historic summit in
August, announcing new military exercises and a hotline for crisis communications. It marked
the �irst time Biden hosted foreign leaders at the Camp David retreat in Maryland, a site of
historic diplomatic negotiations for past presidents. This story has been updated to more
accurately describe the weapons on display during the parade.

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 Fill in the Blank With Appropriate Meaning!

1. Arsenal :
2. Display :
3. Preparing :
4. Resume :
5. Past :
6. Remarkable :
7. Marched :
8. Remarkable :
9. Equipment :
10. Underground :
11. Imagery :
12. Particularly :
13. Aggression :
14. Accurately :
15. Brink :
16. Poncho :
17. Hosted :
18. Retreat :
19. Assembly :
20. Rolling through:
21. Passing by :
22. Showcased :
23. Foreign :
24. Peninsula :
25. In�luence :

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