Book Discloses 50 Korea-U.S. Military Operation Codenames

A U.S. expert on the military made public about 50 codenames of Korean and U.S. military drills and operations.

A military expert, William M. Arkin, described about 3,000 U.S. military operations and their operational codenames which it conducted or is conducting with allies including Korea, and details them in his book “Code Names,” published on February 19.

Besides well-known codenames such as “Ulji Focus Lens” (UFL) and “Team Spirit” used for joint Korean-U.S. military exercises, “Code Name” details about 50 other operations and codenames, including “Skivvy 9”, an operation monitoring morse code transmissions of China and North Korea conducted at Osan Air Base; “Spartan”, an anti-terrorism operation; “Seek Smoke,” an operation aimed at developing technology to detect chemical and biological weapons and germ weapons with laser.

However, he added that a considerable number of the operations are known only as secret and special operations, and that their functions are not completely clear, including operations “Flash Knife” and “Grecian Firebolt.” He said in his new book, “The U.S has conducted or is conducting about 50 military operations or drills with Japan, and it is cooperating with China in three code-named military exercises, one of which is called “Team Cobra.”

In response to the U.S. Defense Department and other security authorities’ accusations that claim that the disclosure of the codenames jeopardizes national security, he defended his position by saying, “The disclosed codenames in the book were all from disclosed sources, and top-secret operations thoroughly remain top secret.”

Prior to the publication of “Code Name,” the Washington Post reported last month that although the U.S. Defense Department tried to track down Arkin’s informer, he found out even the codename of the track down operation.

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com