U.S., South Korea moving ahead with exercises
Military training expected to further provoke North Korea
The Pentagon is pressing ahead with plans to conduct a major joint exercise in South Korea next week, a move that threatens to provoke North Korea.
The U.S.-South Korean exercise, called Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, is held every year and will involve about 17,500 U.S. service members, including 3,000 from outside South Korea, the Pentagon said.
The exercise is “a regularly scheduled, annual exercise and is the culmination of many months of planning,” Marine Lt. Col. Christopher Logan, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
The exercise will run from Aug. 21-31 and is designed to “improve the alliance’s ability to defend” South Korea, where 28,000 U.S. troops are stationed, he said.
It’s unclear what effect the exercises will have on the Trump administration’s tensions with North Korea, which is rushing to develop nuclear weapons that could strike the USA.
The North Koreans view the military exercise as a rehearsal for an invasion of North Korea, said Michael Madden, an analyst at the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “They always get angry about them,” he said.
North Korea may try to increase the readiness of its forces or issue additional threats in response to the military exercise, said Dean Cheng, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
The joint exercise is critical because North Korea has positioned much of its military near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries, posing a threat to South Korea, Cheng said.
Military exercises have been used in negotiations with North Korea. In 1992, Washington and South Korea suspended an exercise to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.
North Korea went back on its agreements, and the United States resumed the exercises.
Tensions between North Korea and the United States intensified last week, raising worries that heightened rhetoric and threats of conflict between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could lead to war.
“This is pretty much de rigueur. It is just happening in the shadow of the Guam threat.”
Dean Cheng, the Heritage Foundation
Trump threatened to bring “fire and fury” to North Korea if it didn’t back down on its threats. Kim responded that he would fire four missiles aimed at the shores off Guam, a U.S. territory.
“This is pretty much de rigueur,” Cheng said. “It is just happening in the shadow of the Guam threat.”
Since then, both leaders have backed off the harsh rhetoric. Kim’s government said North Korea would hold off on firing the missiles. Trump praised the North Korean move Wednesday on Twitter.
“Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision,” Trump tweeted. “The alternative would have been both catastrophic and unacceptable!”