U.S, South Korea begin live military drills

The United States and South Korea began their largest live-action joint military drills for the first time in four years on Monday.

The annual summertime exercises, renamed Ulchi Freedom Shield this year, had been largely reduced to computer simulations since 2018.

Officials said the joint drills, scheduled to end on September 1, will feature field training as the allies seek to tighten readiness over North Korea’s potential weapons tests.

Seoul’s defence ministry said the allies would stage 11 field training programmes, including one at brigade-level involving thousands of soldiers.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, vowed to “normalise” the combined exercises and boost deterrence against the North.

South Korea separately launched a four-day Ulchi civil defence drills on Monday, designed to boost government readiness, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic emerged.

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Yoon said the military and civil exercises are aimed at improving the country’s preparedness to match the changing patterns of war, with evolving cyber threats against key facilities such as chip factories and supply chains.

“Maintaining peace on the Korean peninsula is built on our airtight security posture,” Yoon told a cabinet meeting, calling for thorough exercises based on real-world scenarios.

The drills are the largest since 2017 after being scaled back because of COVID-19 and as Yoon’s predecessor sought to restart talks with Pyongyang, which has called the exercises a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea fired two cruise missiles from the west coast last week, after South Korea and the United States kicked off preliminary training for the exercises.

To better counter North Korea’s growing missile threats targeting the South’s capital, the ministry said it would improve missile detection capabilities and push for an early deployment of a new interceptor system.

The United States, South Korea and Japan participated in a recent ballistic missile defence exercise off Hawaii’s coast, the first such drills since 2017, when relations between Seoul and Tokyo hit their lowest point in years.

Zainab Sa’id