U.S. military unveils top-secret, nuclear weapon-proof bunker

United States Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Paul LaCamera, who called Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations (CP Tango) the place “where the magic is made,” led a small group of invited journalists through the complex on Saturday.

United States Forces Korea Commander Gen. Paul LaCamera speaks to South Korean and U.S. service members at Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations (CP Tango), an underground bunker complex that serves as the central node of joint operations by the allies, during a rare media tour on Saturday. [JUN MIN-KYU]

The U.S. military unveiled a top-secret, nuclear weapon-proof bunker complex that serves as the command center of joint operations for the first time to local and foreign media amid the allies’ ongoing Freedom Shield exercise.

United States Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Paul LaCamera, who called Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations (CP Tango) the place “where the magic is made,” led a small group of invited journalists on Saturday through the complex, which was constructed in the 1970s but only officially disclosed in 2005.

CP Tango, which measures approximately 33,000 square meters (355,200 square feet), consists of multiple rooms of various sizes clustered along a large central corridor with walls of reinforced concrete and exposed rock.

The entire complex is shielded by multiple blast-proof doors and lies hidden underground at an undisclosed location in the capital region.

Should open hostilities break out on the Korean Peninsula, the complex is designed to serve as the allies’ primary headquarters to direct military operations against North Korea.

To that end, it also maintains a two-month stockpile of food and other supplies for up to 500 South Korean and U.S. soldiers.

At the heart of the complex lies the Tactical Operations Center, where officers from the South Korean and U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines oversee information coming in from ongoing missions and reconnaissance assets and issue commands to service members across different fields.

CP Tango also hosts a sensitive compartmented information facility where American — but not South Korean — service members can access information gathered by the CIA, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

According to LaCamera, the true “magic” and intelligence that back operations at CP Tango are “actually made around the Korean Peninsula” across various military domains that are integrated into the allies’ defensive planning against the evolving nature of the security threat posed by North Korea and other countries.

“The weapon systems that our adversaries have pose a threat [to us] from all different directions across multiple domains — under sea, on the sea, in the air, in space and cyberspace — and so all of that information has to be brought together,” the general said, adding that the allies must “think about how we defend against” such multidimensional challenges.

BY LEE CHUL-JAE,MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]