US Army generals propose larger-footprint, more frequent military exercises in Korea

A month after President Donald Trump intervened to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, citing a desire not to upset his “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the commander of Army forces on the peninsula said he’d like to go bigger – both in exercise frequency and geographic scope.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting here Monday, Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea, said lessons from Ukraine prompted interest in changing the shape and structure of exercises there.

“I think what we recognize is that largely the two big exercises every year in Korea focus on large command posts; we’ve got to move away from that,” Brunson said, in response to a question from a Korean journalist.

“So, what we intend to do is take advantage of the knowledge that we have of the threats that exist or that prevail in the Ukraine fight,” he continued. “We’re trying to say how might we train differently, and so [Gen. Kim Sung-min, deputy commander of the Republic of Korea–U.S. Combined Forces Command] and I talk about how we would operate in a distributed fashion.”

In light of the distributed fight and scope of battle in Ukraine, Brunson suggested a training exercise that spanned from Jeju Island to Gyeonggi Province — a distance of nearly 300 miles across nearly the full span of the Korean peninsula.

“Just imagine if we trained across the entirety of the peninsula and got ourselves in a shape where we would say, ‘You can’t utilize the things that you’ve learned in the fight in the battlefield in Ukraine on us, because we learn the same lessons and we’ve distributed ourselves in such a way that we don’t make ourselves the target,” he said. “We won’t be moored in place, and that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about positional advantage. It might not be the same place through the continuum. It might not be the same place when you’re in a crisis or conflict or competition; we might have to change that, and that’s what we’re learning.”

His remarks acknowledged ongoing collusion and information sharing between U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China and North Korea, as Russia continues its war of aggression in Ukraine.

Also on the table, Brunson said, were additional exercises, or a different schedule.

“For a long time, we trained for two big exercises every year. What would happen if we trained in between those exercises?” he said.

He cited a recent exercise conducted without troops that drilled, on a small scale, on what a mass garrison evacuation would look like in light of a major threat.

“We’re there to protect the Korean people on the peninsula, and so we’re there to defend both homelands, the United States of America and the Republic of Korea. But what would it look like … if our environment changed?” Brunson said.

While Trump’s Aug. 16 Truth Social post suggested a broad reduction in exercises with Korea, another general, Lt. Gen. Joe Hilbert, said earlier Monday that the order pertained to only one exercise in August, Ulchi Freedom Shield.

Hilbert, who commands the Korea-based Eighth Army, said the live portion of that exercise was reduced by half and some elements that had been joint became unilateral. He maintained that joint training writ large

“We continue to train on the peninsula. We continue to train with the Koreans,” he said, adding that troops from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division were currently training on South Korean ranges in a rotational deployment.

“So we’ll continue to train and we’ll continue to build readiness for U.S. forces on the peninsula throughout the year, except from that particular timeline and that particular exercise,” Hilber said. “As we all are observing and watching how the war is changing in Ukraine and in the Middle East, the North Koreans are absolutely doing that too. So rest assured, we pay attention to that, and we work to stay ahead.”

在唐纳德·特朗普总统介入缩减与韩国的联合军事演习一个月后，特朗普表示，他不想破坏与朝鲜独裁者金正恩的“非常好的关系”，朝鲜半岛陆军司令表示，他希望扩大演习规模——无论是在演习频率还是地理范围上。

周一，联合国军司令部、联合部队司令部和驻韩美军司令泽维尔·布伦森将军在美军协会年会上发表讲话时表示，乌克兰的教训促使人们开始关注改变那里演习的形式和结构。

布伦森在回答一位韩国记者的提问时说：“我认为我们认识到，韩国每年举行的两次大型演习主要侧重于大型指挥所；我们必须摆脱这种模式。”

“所以，我们打算利用我们对乌克兰冲突中存在的或普遍存在的威胁的了解，”他继续说道。“我们正在尝试探讨如何进行不同的训练，因此，我和（韩国-美国联合部队司令部副司令金成珉将军）讨论了我们如何以分散的方式作战。”

鉴于乌克兰战争的分散性和规模，布伦森建议进行一次从济州岛到京畿道的训练演习——这段距离近 300 英里，几乎横跨整个朝鲜半岛。

“试想一下，如果我们在整个半岛进行训练，让自己处于一种状态，那么我们就可以说：‘你们无法把在乌克兰战场上学到的东西用在我们身上，因为我们吸取了同样的教训，而且我们已经分散部署，不会让自己成为攻击目标。’”他说道，“我们不会固守一处，这就是我所说的阵地优势。在不同的情境下，阵地优势可能并不相同。在危机、冲突或竞争中，阵地优势可能也不同；我们可能需要改变阵地，而这正是我们正在学习的。”

他的讲话承认，美国对手（包括俄罗斯、中国和朝鲜）之间存在持续的勾结和信息共享，而俄罗斯则继续在乌克兰发动侵略战争。

布伦森表示，他们也在考虑增加训练项目或调整训练计划。

“长期以来，我们每年都进行两次大型演习的训练。如果我们在这两次演习之间也进行训练，会发生什么呢？”他说道。

他提到最近一次没有部队参与的演习，该演习小规模地模拟了在面临重大威胁时大规模驻军撤离的情况。

“我们驻扎在那里是为了保护朝鲜半岛上的韩国人民，所以我们也要保卫两国的家园，即美利坚合众国和大韩民国。但是，如果我们的环境发生变化，那会是什么样子呢？”布伦森说道。

虽然特朗普 8 月 16 日在 Truth Social 上发布的帖子暗示将大幅减少与韩国的联合演习，但另一位将军，乔·希尔伯特中将周一早些时候表示，该命令仅涉及 8 月份的一次演习——乙支自由之盾。

驻韩第八集团军司令希尔伯特表示，此次演习的实战部分缩减了一半，一些原本联合进行的演习项目变成了单边演习。他坚持认为，联合训练总体而言……

“我们继续在朝鲜半岛进行训练。我们继续与韩国人一起训练，”他说道，并补充说，陆军第二步兵师的部队目前正在韩国靶场进行轮换部署训练。

“所以，除了那次特定的演习和时间安排之外，我们将继续训练，并全年持续提升驻朝鲜半岛美军的战备水平，”希尔伯说。“我们都在密切关注乌克兰和中东战局的变化，朝鲜方面也同样如此。所以请放心，我们密切关注着事态发展，并努力保持领先地位。”