The top officers of the Army and the Navy on Thursday visited western coastal guard units to check their readiness, the armed services said, amid heightened tensions over North Korea's recent artillery firing. Gen. Park An-su, the Army's chief of staff, and Adm. Yang Yong-mo, chief of naval operations, inspected the units, including a radar base, in the southwestern county of Buan, 204 kilometers south of Seoul, after the North fired hundreds of artillery shells near the sea border in the Yellow Sea from Friday to Sunday. Park instructed troops to establish an integrated operational defense posture and called for strengthening capabilities through "realistic" education and training, according to a joint release. The North's latest saber-rattling has prompted the South Korean military to make preparations to resume exercises near the land and sea border, which were halted under a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement. Park and Yang also held discussions on utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology for coastal guard operations amid a push to utilize advanced surveillance technologies to conduct such operations more efficiently. The move comes as the military seeks to address concerns of future personnel shortages brought on by the country's chronically low birthrates. Source: Yonhap News Agency