U.S. dismisses calls to pause military exercises
North Korea vows ‘merciless retaliation’
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 allies Seoul and Washington, but always uneasy ties between the Koreas are worse than normal this year following weeks of tit-for-tat threats between President Donald Trump and Pyongyang in the wake of the North’s two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month.
There have been calls in both the United States and South Korea to postpone or modify the drills in an attempt 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 for the allies to maintain readiness against an aggressive 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. That reason has not yet emerged,” he said.
The U.S. military officials later traveled to the site of a contentious U.S. missile-defense system in South Korea later Tuesday.
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 that began Monday for an 11-day run.
The North Korean statement accused the United States of deploying unspecified “lethal” weapons for the drills that it says involve a “beheading operation” training aimed at removing absolute ruler Kim Jong Un.
The Ulchi drills are largely computer-simulated war games held every summer, and this year’s exercise involves 17,500 American troops and 50,000 South Korean soldiers. No field training like live-fire exercises or tank maneuvering is involved in the drills, in which alliance officers sit at computers to practice how they would engage in battles. The allies have said the drills are defensive in nature.