High-profile Event Raising Concerns
South Korea and the United States will begin a major combined military exercise next week to bolster their joint defence readiness in the face of evolving North Korean military threats, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on August 12.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, based on an all-out war scenario, will take place from 19 to 29 August and will include the main computer-simulated command post exercise, concurrent field training and civil defence drills.
During the exercise period, the government-led Ulchi civil defence drill will for the first time include a scenario simulating a North Korean nuclear attack, while the joint military exercise will not include such a scenario. A civil defense drill would imply a rehearsal of the protective measures required to be taken during a possible nuclear attack by North Korea.
"By focusing on countering threats from North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, the ROK-US alliance will further strengthen its capabilities and joint responses to any provocation with multi-domain operations using various assets," Col. Lee Sung-joon, spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a press briefing at the defence ministry in Seoul on August 12.
The allies' drill comes amid growing concern over Pyongyang's continued weapons development, highlighted by the launch of 37 ballistic missiles this year alone, and heightened cross-border tensions from the North's recent trash balloon campaign.
The allies said this year's exercise will reflect threats from all domains, including those posed by North Korean missiles, GPS jamming and cyber attacks, as well as lessons learned from recent armed conflicts.
Risk and impact
The Ulchi Freedom Shield drills could provoke a belligerent response from North Korea, which portrays them as invasion rehearsals and has used the allies' military cooperation as a pretext to advance its nuclear and missile development.
Animosity on the Korean peninsula is high as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to use Russia's war on Ukraine as a window to accelerate weapons development, while issuing verbal threats of nuclear conflict against Washington and Seoul.
In response, South Korea, the United States and Japan have expanded their joint military exercises and sharpened their nuclear deterrence strategies based on US strategic assets. During last year's Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests that it said simulated 'scorched earth' nuclear strikes on South Korean targets.
In recent weeks, the North has also flown thousands of balloons carrying rubbish into the South in a bizarre psychological warfare campaign that has further soured relations between the war-ravaged rivals. [With inputs from Korea Times and Korea Herald]
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