US, SKorea open biggest drills in years amid North threats

SEOUL, South Korea — The United States and South Korea began their biggest combined military training in years Monday as they heighten their defense posture against the growing North Korean nuclear threat.

The drills could draw an angry response from North Korea, which has dialed up its weapons testing activity to a record pace this year while repeatedly threatening conflicts with Seoul and Washington amid a prolonged stalemate in diplomacy.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises will continue through Sept. 1 in South Korea and include field exercises involving aircraft, warships, tanks and potentially tens of thousands of troops.

While Washington and Seoul describe their exercises as defensive, North Korea portrays them as invasion rehearsals and has used them to justify its nuclear weapons and missiles development .

Ulchi Freedom Shield, which started along with a four-day South Korean civil defense training program led by government employees, will reportedly include exercises simulating joint attacks, front-line reinforcements of arms and fuel, and removals of weapons of mass destruction.

The allies will also train for drone attacks and other new developments in warfare shown during Russia’s war on Ukraine and practice joint military-civilian responses to attacks on seaports, airports and major industrial facilities such as semiconductor factories.

The United States and South Korea in past years had canceled some of their regular drills and downsized others to computer simulations to create space for the Trump administration’s diplomacy with North Korea and because of COVID-19 concerns.

Tensions have grown since the collapse of the second meeting between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in early 2019. The Americans then rejected North Korean demands for a major release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear complex, which would have amounted to a partial surrender of the North’s nuclear capabilities. Kim has since vowed to bolster his nuclear deterrent in face of “gangster-like” U.S. pressure.

Protesters stage a rally to oppose the joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea in front of the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. The United States and South Korea began their biggest combined military training in years Monday as they heighten their defense posture against the growing North Korean nuclear threat. The banners read "Stop the military exercise." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

South Korea’s military has not revealed the number of South Korean and U.S. troops participating in Ulchi Freedom Shield, but has portrayed the training as a message of strength. Seoul’s Defense Ministry said last week that Ulchi Freedom Shield “normalizes” large-scale training and field exercises between the allies to help bolster their alliance and strengthen their defense posture against the evolving North Korean threat.

Before being shelved or downsized, the United States and South Korea held major joint exercises every spring and summer in South Korea.

The spring drills had included live-fire drills involving a broad range of land, air and sea assets and usually involved around 10,000 American and 200,000 Korean troops. Tens of thousands of allied troops participated in the summertime drills, which mainly consisted of computer simulations to hone joint decision-making and planning, although South Korea’s military has emphasized the revival of field training this year.

The drills follow North Korea’s dismissal last week of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s “audacious” proposal of economic benefits in exchange for denuclearization steps, accusing Seoul of recycling proposals Pyongyang has long rejected.

Kim Yo Jong, the increasingly powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, described Yoon’s proposal as foolish and stressed that the North has no intentions to give away an arsenal her brother clearly sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.

She harshly criticized Yoon for continuing military exercises with the United States and also for letting South Korean civilian activists fly anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other “dirty waste” across the border by balloon .

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, top center, presides over a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (Suh Myung-geon/Yonhap via AP)

She also ridiculed U.S.-South Korean military capabilities for monitoring the North’s missile activity, insisting that the South misread the launch site of the North’s latest missile tests on Wednesday last week, hours before Yoon used a news conference to urge Pyongyang to return to diplomacy.

Kim Yo Jong’s statement came a week after she warned of “deadly” retaliation against South Korea over a recent North Korean COVID-19 outbreak, which Pyongyang dubiously claims was caused by leaflets and other objects floated by southern activists. There are concerns that the threat portends a provocation which might include a nuclear or missile test or even border skirmishes, and that the North might try to raise tensions sometime around the allied drills.

In an interview with Associated Press Television last month, Choe Jin, deputy director of a think tank run by North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said the United States and South Korea would face “unprecedented” security challenges if they don’t drop their hostile military pressure campaign against North Korea, including joint military drills.

Last week’s launches of two suspected cruise missiles extended a record pace in North Korean missile testing in 2022, which has involved more than 30 ballistic launches, including the country’s first demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic missiles in nearly five years.

North Korea’s heighted testing activity underscores its dual intent to advance its arsenal and force the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power so it can negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength, experts say.

Kim Jong Un could up the ante soon as there are indications that the North is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since September 2017, when it claimed to have developed a thermonuclear weapon to fit on its ICBMs.

韩国首尔——周一，美国和韩国开始了多年来规模最大的联合军事训练，以加强对日益增长的朝鲜核威胁的防御态势。

这些演习可能会激怒朝鲜。今年，朝鲜加大了武器试验力度，创下历史新高，同时在外交长期僵局中，朝鲜还不断威胁要与首尔和华盛顿发生冲突。

“乙支自由之盾”演习将在韩国持续到9月1日，其中包括涉及飞机、军舰、坦克以及可能数万名士兵的实地演习。

尽管华盛顿和首尔将他们的演习描述为防御性的，但朝鲜却将其描绘成入侵演习，并以此为其核武器和导弹研发辩护。

据报道，“乙支自由之盾”演习与由政府雇员领导的为期四天的韩国民防训练计划同时启动，演习内容包括模拟联合攻击、前线武器和燃料增援以及大规模杀伤性武器的移除。

盟军还将训练应对无人机袭击以及俄罗斯对乌克兰战争中出现的其他新的战争手段，并演练军民联合应对针对海港、机场和半导体工厂等主要工业设施的袭击。

过去几年，由于对新冠疫情的担忧，以及为了给特朗普政府与朝鲜的外交活动腾出空间，美国和韩国取消了一些常规演习，并将其他演习缩减为计算机模拟。

自2019年初美国总统特朗普与朝鲜领导人金正恩第二次会晤破裂以来，美朝紧张局势不断升级。当时，美国拒绝了朝鲜提出的以拆除老旧核设施为条件，换取大幅解除美国主导的严厉制裁的要求。如果朝鲜真的拆除核设施，就相当于部分放弃其核能力。此后，面对美国“蛮横无理”的施压，金正恩誓言要加强其核威慑力量。

2022年8月22日星期一，在韩国首尔总统府前，抗议者举行集会，反对美韩联合军事演习。美韩于当日启动了近年来规模最大的联合军事演习，旨在加强防御，应对日益增长的朝鲜核威胁。横幅上写着“停止军事演习”。（美联社照片/安永俊）

韩国军方并未透露参加“乙支自由之盾”演习的韩美双方士兵人数，但将此次训练描述为展现双方实力的一种方式。首尔国防部上周表示，“乙支自由之盾”演习旨在“规范”盟国间的大规模训练和实地演习，以巩固盟国关系，并加强其应对不断演变的朝鲜威胁的防御态势。

在被搁置或缩减规模之前，美国和韩国每年春夏两季都会在韩国举行大型联合军演。

春季演习包括实弹射击演练，涉及陆、空、海等多种兵力，通常约有1万名美军和20万名韩军参与。数万名盟军士兵参加了夏季演习，演习主要以计算机模拟为主，旨在提升联合决策和计划能力。不过，韩国军方今年强调恢复实地训练。

此次演习是在朝鲜上周驳斥韩国总统尹锡悦提出的以经济利益换取无核化措施的“大胆”提议之后举行的。朝鲜指责首尔老调重弹，重复平壤长期以来拒绝的提议。

朝鲜领导人金正恩的妹妹金与正，其权力日益增强，她称尹锡悦的提议是愚蠢的，并强调朝鲜无意放弃其兄长显然视为其生存最强保障的武器库。

她严厉批评尹锡悦继续与美国进行军事演习，还允许韩国民间活动人士用气球向朝鲜散发反平壤宣传单和其他“肮脏垃圾”。

2022年8月22日星期一，韩国总统尹锡烈（图中上方）在首尔总统府主持内阁会议。（Suh Myung-geon/Yonhap via AP）

她还嘲讽了美韩两国监测朝鲜导弹活动的军事能力，坚称韩国误判了朝鲜上周三最新导弹试验的发射地点。几个小时后，尹锡悦在新闻发布会上敦促平壤重返外交舞台。

金与正发表声明一周前，她曾警告称，朝鲜近期爆发新冠疫情，将对韩国进行“致命”报复。平壤方面声称，疫情是由韩国活动人士散发的传单和其他物品造成的，但这一说法令人质疑。外界担忧，这一威胁预示着朝鲜可能进行挑衅，包括核试验、导弹试验甚至边境冲突，并担心朝鲜可能会在韩美联合军演前后试图加剧紧张局势。

上个月，朝鲜外务省智库副主任崔镇在接受美联社电视台采访时表示，如果美国和韩国不停止对朝鲜的敌对军事施压行动（包括联合军事演习），两国将面临“前所未有的”安全挑战。

上周朝鲜发射了两枚疑似巡航导弹，延续了2022年朝鲜导弹试验的创纪录步伐。2022年，朝鲜已进行了30多次弹道导弹发射，其中包括近五年来首次洲际弹道导弹的演示。

专家表示，朝鲜不断加强核试验活动，凸显了其双重意图：一方面推进核武库建设，另一方面迫使美国接受朝鲜作为核大国的现实，从而使朝鲜能够从实力地位出发，就经济和安全问题进行谈判。

有迹象表明，朝鲜正准备进行自 2017 年 9 月以来的首次核试验，金正恩可能很快就会加大赌注。当时朝鲜声称已研制出可安装在其洲际弹道导弹上的热核武器。