JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. – –
The ties that bind ally nations together must often transcend geographical and demographical obstacles such as distance, culture, ethnicity and language; especially when the nations share similar goals and values like saving lives and mitigating suffering.
Joint Task Force – Civil Support, the United States’ only standing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear task force, is demonstrating how those obstacles can be overcome by collaborating with the Republic of Korea’s Consequence Management Unit to enhance each other’s CBRN response capabilities through subject matter expertise, coordination, planning support and structured engagement.
On Tuesday, 3 September 2025, JTF-CS hosted a delegation from the ROK’s Ministry of National Defense at command headquarters on Ft. Eustis, Virginia, where experts from JTF-CS and the ROK MND discussed the importance of a standing South Korean CBRN CMU and the ramifications of a lack thereof.
“Having the ROK consequence management team at JTF-CS just shows both the ROK and U.S.'s continued commitment to response prepared-ness,” said JTF-CS Deputy Commander Thaddeus Drake. “Saving lives and preventing suffering is our shared focus, and strengthening ties between these two commands can only make us better and more prepared to respond should we ever be needed.”
BACKGROUND
From 2011 to 2016, the ROK and the U.S. held Exercise Able Response, bio-defense exercises at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, which led to the birth of the Global Health Security Agenda. Chronologically, thanks to Exercise AR, Korea was able to overcome the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome crisis, and with the help of GHSA, was able to overcome COVID-19 in 2019.
In 2024, the ROK MND formally requested U.S. Department of Defense assistance in developing a nuclear and weapons of mass destruction consequence management group under their CBRN Defense Command and sought out JTF-CS as the primary U.S. partner to support consequence management capability development.
Col. Sangmin Lee, research project director at the Future Strategy Office, KIDA, led a study entitled “Pathways to ROK – U.S. Joint Consequence Management Cooperation,” which concluded post-nuclear management is necessary from the perspective of a South Korea-U.S. alliance because, “28,500 U.S. troops are stationed on the Korean Peninsula, and hundreds of thousands of American citizens live here. Furthermore, if a nuclear accident occurs in the region, U.S. troops stationed in Japan, or American citizens living in Japan, may also suffer from radioactive contamination.”
The study assessed that protection is just as important as consequence management in response to nuclear disasters, are “complementary” and “focusing solely on protection is costly. It is necessary to develop both in balance.”
According to Lee, the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan, and the April 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine), Soviet Union, demonstrated how atmospheric and oceanic conditions shape the spread of contamination. Radioactive materials from Fukushima were dispersed into the Pacific Ocean towards Japan, and the fallout from Chernobyl caused more damage to the neighboring country of Belarus than it did the Soviet Union.
The Korean Peninsula boarders China to the west and is one of the most densely concentrated regions of nuclear power plants. Most are concentrated along its eastern and southern coasts, and China has been expanding the development of mobile offshore plants. If a nuclear accident were to occur in the West Sea, major U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan could face direct and critical damage.
“Prevailing westerly winds and ocean currents could carry radioactive contaminants toward the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said. “This could devastate fisheries and agriculture, and in the worst-case scenario, render much of the peninsula (and possibly Japan) uninhabitable for decades.”
OBJECTIVES
U.S. Northern Command, through JTF-CS, supports ROK MND efforts to establish a national-level consequence management capability by providing subject matter expertise, coordination, planning support and structured engagement in alignment with USNORTHCOM and the Office of the Secretary of Defense strategic guidance.
The desired end-state is a sustained and collaborative partnership with the ROK CBRNDC, resulting in a fully capable and operational South Korean consequence management unit that can effectively respond to CBRN incidents, minimizing impact on civilians and ensuring conditions for allied military operations. This involves government-scale activities for the preservation of national facilities and functionality.
“Nuclear attacks, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear accidents are large-scale national disasters,” Col. Lee said. “Yet, they tend to manifest in a ‘gray zone’ where clear lines of responsibility among authorities are blurred. This ambiguity risks losing the golden time [the first 24-48 hours after an incident] required for effective initial response. We want to learn from you.”
To that end, JTF-CS serves as the ROK CBRNDC’s designated U.S. partner for consequence management cooperation, sharing information on unit structure, military-civil coordination, planning, operations, and training models, facilitating subject matter expert exchanges, virtual coordination, supporting South Korean-based training activities and conducting key leader engagements with their CBRNDC.
ALLIANCE & STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
The meeting on Sept. 3 provided JTF-CS with a unique opportunity to engage with South Korean experts on nuclear consequence management and establish a shared understanding of the importance of collaboration and the mutual benefits it provides.
The South Korean delegation entered the meeting with a list of questions, which JTF-CS leadership and staff addressed in detail. Discussed were the primary responsibilities in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster; how critical decisions were made and the resources deployed during the initial response phase; the priorities and operational protocols for managing challenges such as radioactive fallout, environmental contamination, mass evacuation and infrastructure disruption; technologies, equipment and training used to assess damage and support recovery; how JTF-CS coordinates with other military branches, specialized forces and civilian agencies; and, in mass casualty scenarios resulting from a nuclear event, how JTF-CS supports civilian medical infrastructure.
Lt. Col. Ryan Jung, JTF-CS CBRN planner, serves as the action officer for the U.S.-South Korean partnership, coordinating and developing meaningful engagements that benefit both organizations. He cited that, as a critical element of the Indo-Pacific strategy, this collaboration promotes stability and reinforces U.S. leadership in addressing global security challenges. By preparing for nuclear incidents, he claimed, the alliance builds public confidence, deters adversaries and safeguards lives and infrastructure, making it a cornerstone of both regional and U.S. security interests.
“The U.S.-ROK partnership for nuclear consequence management is vital to national security, particularly in addressing the North Korean threat,” Jung said. “North Korea’s nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and suspected chemical and biological capabilities pose significant risks to the region, including the safety of 170 thousand U.S. citizens, among them 28 thousand U.S. service members stationed in South Korea.”
VALUE OF PARTNERSHIP
ROK Army CBRN School Commandant, Brig. Gen. Jaehoon Yoo, expressed his gratitude to JTF-CS and articulated the importance of cooperation between the two nations.
“[T]he military situation and background is different between ROK and U.S.,” he said. “While there is such a difference, I would like to point out that we also have similarities in that we wish to protect the citizens of our respective countries and reduce damages and casualties as much as possible.
“We are currently in the initial stages of launching our own nuclear consequence management program and hoped this gathering would help us while we consider the factors needed to establish our program, [and] that it is not just a combined effort of both our countries, but that it could expand to combined efforts with our other allies.”
JTF-CS Chief of Staff, Mike Balser, was sincerely impressed by the deliberate way the ROK is developing their requirements for catastrophic response operations.
“The way you are approaching this problem is inspiring,” he said to the delegation. “This is the way we have chosen to do it, but it may not work for everyone. The abilities of this group - their foresight, curiosity, intellect - simply shows that South Korea will have the very best response program.”
The meeting of the two delegations wasn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Balser pledged, “If we haven’t answered all your questions to your satisfaction, we will keep at it until we do.”