U.S.-South Korea drills to begin amid tensions with North

SEOUL — America’s annual joint military exercises with South Korea always frustrate North Korea. The war games set to begin Monday may hold more potential to provoke than ever, given President Trump’s “fire and fury” threats and Pyongyang’s as-yet-unpursued plan to launch missiles close to Guam.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, which will run through Aug. 31, will be the first largescale military exercise between the allies since North Korea successfully tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July and threatened to bracket Guam with intermediate range ballistic missile fire earlier this month.

Despite some calls to postpone or drastically modify drills to ease the hostility on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. and South Korean military officials say the longscheduled exercises will go ahead as planned.

The drills, which began in the 1970s and will involve 17,500 American troops and 50,000 South Korean soldiers this year, consist mainly of computer simulations aimed at honing joint-decision making and planning and improving command operations.

About 25,000 U.S. service members joined last year’s UFG drills. An official from U.S. Forces Korea, who declined to be named citing office rules, said the number of participating American troops can change depending on how training events are designed and that the lower number this year doesn’t represent an effort to downsize the drills.

The United States and South Korea also hold larger war games in the spring, called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, which involve live-fire exercises and training with tanks, aircraft and warships.

There’s speculation that the allies might try to keep this year’s drills low-key by not dispatching long-range bombers and other U.S. strategic assets to the region. But that possibility worries some, who say it would send the wrong message to both North Korea and the South, where there are fears that the North’s advancing nuclear capabilities may eventually undermine a decadeslong alliance with the United States.

“If anything, the joint exercises must be strengthened,” said Cheon Seongwhun, who served as a national security adviser to former conservative South Korean President Park Geunhye.

Impoverished North Korea hates the drills in part because it must frequently respond with its own expensive displays of military might.

During last year’s drills, the North successfully test-fired for the first time a submarinelaunched ballistic missile ruler Kim Jong Un then praised as the “success of all successes.” Shortly after the drills, the North carried out its fifth and biggest nuclear test, which it claimed was of a “standardized” warhead that could fit on a variety of its rockets.

During this year’s war games in March, North Korea launched four extended-range Scud missiles into the sea in what it described as a rehearsal for striking U.S. military bases in Japan.

It’s almost certain that this year’s drills will trigger some kind of reaction from North Korea. The question is how strong it will be.

Some experts say North Korea is mainly focused on the bigger picture of testing its bargaining power against the United States with its new long-range missiles and likely has no interest in letting things get too tense during the drills. But others think the North might use the drills as an excuse to conduct another ICBM test or maybe even act on its threat to lob missiles into the waters near Guam.