The United States and South Korea will begin expanded military exercises next week

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States and South Korea will begin their biggest combined military training in years next week in the face of an increasingly aggressive North Korea, which has been escalating weapons tests and threats of conflict. nuclear attack on Seoul and South Korea. Washington, the South’s military said Tuesday.

The allied summer drills, to be held from August 22 to September 1 in South Korea under the name Ulchi Freedom Shield, will include field exercises involving aircraft, warships, tanks and potentially tens of thousands of troops.

The drills underscore Washington’s and Seoul’s commitment to restoring full-scale training after canceled some of its regular drills and downsized others to computer simulations in recent years to create room for diplomacy with Pyongyang and because of COVID-19 concerns.

The US Department of Defense also said that the US, South Korean and Japanese navies participated in ballistic missile search and track and missile warning exercises off the coast of Hawaii from 8 to 14 June. August, which said they aimed to promote trilateral cooperation in the face of challenges from North Korea.

While the United States and South Korea describe their exercises as defensive, Ulchi Freedom Shield will almost certainly provoke an angry reaction from North Korea, which describes all allied training as invasion drills and has used them to justify its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Before they were shelved or scaled back, the US and South Korea held major joint exercises every spring and summer in South Korea. The spring ones were highlighted by live-fire drills that involved a wide range of land, air, and sea assets and typically involved around 10,000 American and 200,000 Korean troops.

Tens of thousands of allied troops had participated in the summer drills, which consisted mainly of computer simulations to hone joint decision-making and planning, though this time the South Korean military has emphasized reviving field training to big scale.

Officials from the Seoul Ministry of Defense and its Joint Chiefs of Staff did not comment on the number of US and South Korean troops that would participate in the Ulchi Freedom Guardian Shield.

“The biggest significance of (Ulchi Freedom Shield) is that it normalizes the combined South Korea-US exercises and field training, (contributing) to rebuilding the South Korea-US alliance and the combined defense posture,” Moon Hong-sik, a Defense Ministry spokesman said during a briefing.

Some experts say North Korea may use the drills as an excuse to escalate tensions.

The North has already warned of a “deadly” retaliation against South Korea for its COVID-19 outbreak doubtfully claiming was caused by anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other objects flown across the border by balloons released by southern activists. There are concerns that the North Korean threat, issued last week by leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, heralds a provocation, which may include a major missile or nuclear test or even border skirmishes.

in a interview with Associated Press Television Last month, Choe Jin, deputy director of a think tank run by Pyongyang’s foreign ministry, said the United States and South Korea would face “unprecedented” security challenges.

Kim Jun-rak, spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the South Korean and US militaries were closely monitoring North Korean military activities and installations.

Animosity has built up on the Korean Peninsula since US-North Korea nuclear talks were derailed in early 2019 over the exchange of the release of crippling US-led sanctions against the North and the North’s disarmament steps. .

Since then, Kim Jong Un has declared that he will strengthen his nuclear deterrence in the face of “gangster-like” US pressure and has halted all cooperation with the South. Taking advantage of a split in the UN Security Council over Russia’s war against Ukraine, North Korea has accelerated weapons testing at a record pace this year, conducting more than 30 ballistic launches. They have included the country’s first demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic missile technology since 2017 and more tests of tactical systems designed to be armed with small battlefield nuclear weapons.

Kim has punctuated his testing binge with repeated warnings that the North would proactively use its nuclear weapons in conflicts with South Korea and the United States, which experts say indicate an escalating nuclear doctrine that could cause further concern to its neighbors.

South Korean and US officials say North Korea is also preparing for its first nuclear test since September 2017, when it claimed to have developed a thermonuclear warhead for its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

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