South Korean marines stand in formation during training with U.S. Marines in Pohang, South Korea, March 29, 2023. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — North Korea condemned the U.S. and South Korea’s large-scale military exercise that kicked off Monday, likening it to a “beheading operation” against Pyongyang and a “prelude to a nuclear war.”
The two allies began the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise on land, air and sea throughout South Korea on Monday; it is the second large-scale exercise conducted by the allies annually.
The ongoing drills are part of a series of “rash confrontational moves” by the United States and South Korea, the North’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement published Sunday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
U.S. strategic military assets that appeared in the peninsula earlier this year are a “nuclear confrontation policy against [North Korea]” and contradict Washington and Seoul’s position that such moves and exercises are defensive in nature, the statement said.
These assets include the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which steamed into Busan for the first time in June as part of trilateral naval drills with South Korea and Japan.
That month, a U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer bomber flew over South Korean airspace and conducted bombing drills alongside South Korean F-35A Lightning IIs and F-15K Slam Eagles.
Ulchi Freedom Shield, named after a 7th-century Korean general, will consist of roughly 19,000 South Korean troops, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Further exercise details were not disclosed by the Ministry of National Defense or U.S. Forces Korea, the command responsible for 28,500 American troops in South Korea.
However, the drills will tackle threats stemming from weapons of mass destruction, cyberattacks and GPS jamming, according to the Joint Chiefs.
South Korea’s military has accused the North of jamming GPS signals at the maritime border between May and June.
On Aug. 24, four days into last year’s Ulchi Freedom Shield, North Korea launched a spy satellite that failed to reach orbit. The communist regime also fired two short-range ballistic missiles that flew from Pyongyang to the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, on Aug. 31, the last day of the exercise.
President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to expanded military cooperation through trilateral military drills following their summit at Camp David, Md., on Aug. 18, 2023.
“The United States unequivocally reaffirms that its extended deterrence commitments to both Japan and [South Korea] are ironclad and backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities,” the leaders said in a joint statement at the time.
The leaders renewed their pledge in a new statement Sunday on the one-year anniversary of the Camp David meeting.
“We renew our commitment to enhancing security cooperation — girded by the ironclad U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances …,” the statement said. “Over the past year, we have demonstrated our unwavering commitment to these shared objectives through close consultation and coordination on priorities in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”
