U.S. Congress chooses Pyeongtaek base as Indo-Pacific intelligence hub

The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act submitted on Wednesday (local time) advised the U.S. Defense Department to build the Black Hat Intelligence Fusion Center (IFC) in Camp Humphreys located in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. It added that the U.S. Army will take charge of the IFC where the U.S. Armed Forces manages all kinds of military and defense intelligence collected across the Indo-Pacific region in an integrated way.

The Black Hat may focus mainly on North Korea and China. The Military AutoSource (MAS) Molesworth On Base located in Cambridgeshire, Britain, has since 2005 operated a NATO-version IFC to collect intelligence regarding the organization’s member states and Russia. The Black Hat construction project is expected to require an expenditure of 149 million dollars, or about 175 billion won.

Given that the South Korean government is responsible for paying for all kinds of construction projects in any U.S. military base in the country as per the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) between Seoul and Washington, Seoul will have to finance the IFC project as well.


Min Kim kimmin@donga.com