Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Group and the South Korean army's 7th Special Forces Brigade parachute out of a CH-47 Chinook during Ulchi Freedom Shield in Iksan, South Korea, March 5, 2023. (Samuel Kim/U.S. Army)
SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. and South Korean troops will soon kick off their first large military exercise of the year just after a flurry of cruise and ballistic missile launches by North Korea.
The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise starts Monday and will test the allies’ “ability to fortify the combined defense posture and enhance alliance response capabilities against a spectrum of security threats,” according to a news release Wednesday from U.S. Forces Korea. The exercise is scheduled to conclude March 14
Freedom Shield is a semiannual, large-scale military training throughout South Korea. A second exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, is typically held in August.
Around 48 drills are scheduled for Freedom Shield, including air assault, air-to-air, air-to-surface, and cyber-related operations, South Korean army Col. Lee Sung-jun told reporters during a news conference Wednesday alongside USFK spokesman Army Col. Isaac Taylor. They spoke at the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul.
Lee said one exercise scenario will include identifying North Korea’s cruise missile launch sites. None of the drills will be conducted near the Demilitarized Zone, the border with North Korea.
The North launched an unspecified number of cruise missiles over a 10-day span starting Jan. 24, according to Seoul. The communist regime also fired a solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew roughly 620 miles before splashing down into the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, on Jan. 14.
The next day, the U.S., South Korean and Japanese navies held a three-day exercise involving nine warships in waters south of the Korean Peninsula.
Troops from 11 other U.N. Command member states will also be participating in Freedom Shield: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, according to USFK’s release.
Lee and Taylor, citing concern for operational security, declined to say whether strategic assets such as aircraft carriers — and long-range bombers and submarines capable of carrying nuclear weapons — would take part in the exercise.
The spokesmen declined to specify how many troops are expected to take part in the exercise.
“These exercises are the same exercises that we’ve been doing for decades,” Taylor told reporters.
Freedom Shield comes about four months after Seoul and Pyongyang walked back a military deconfliction agreement signed in 2018. The agreement, which banned armed guards and flights near the peninsula’s border, was scrapped by both countries after North Korea launched a military reconnaissance satellite in November.
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported last month that Pyongyang will abandon all reunification efforts with the South due to its “collusion” with the U.S. and described Seoul as its “primary foe.”
