Commanders defend Korean exercises
Say joint drills help keep Pyongyang at bay
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — As North Korea vowed “merciless retaliation” against U.s.-south Korean military drills that it claims are an invasion rehearsal, senior U.S. military commanders on Tuesday dismissed calls to pause or downsize exercises they called crucial to countering a clear threat from Pyongyang.
The heated North Korean rhetoric, along with occasional weapons tests, is standard fare during the spring and summer war games by Seoul and Washington, but ties between the Koreas are worse than normal following weeks of threats between President Donald Trump and Pyongyang in the wake of two intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
There have been calls in the United States and South Korea to postpone or modify the drills to ease hostility on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s threat to lob missiles toward the U.S. territory of Guam.
But a visiting group of senior U.S. military commanders, including Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the drills are critical to maintain readiness against North Korea.
“A strong diplomatic effort backed by a strong military effort is key because credible combat power should be in support of diplomacy and not the other way around,” Harris said during a news conference at the Osan Air Base in South Korea.
Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said the allies should continue the war games until they “have reason not to.”
North Korea’s military said in a statement that it would launch an unspecified “merciless retaliation and unsparing punishment” on the United States over the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills.