SEOUL (Dispatches) -- South Korea and the United States began their largest joint military drills in years on Monday with a resumption of field training, officials said, marking a dramatic escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The annual summertime exercises, renamed Ulchi Freedom Shield this year and scheduled to end on Sept. 1, came after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, vowed to “normalize” the combined exercises and boost military capabilities against the North.
South Korea separately launched the four-day Ulchi civil defense drills on Monday, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic emerged.
The 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, Yoon said.
The drills were 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.
North Korea has conducted missile tests at an unprecedented pace this year and is ready to conduct its seventh nuclear test at any time, Seoul officials said.
Yoon has said his government is willing to provide economic aid if Pyongyang takes steps toward denuclearization, but North Korea has rebuffed his offer, openly criticizing him.
Seoul’s defense ministry has said the allies would stage 11 field training programs, including one at brigade-level - involving thousands of soldiers - this summer.
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 defense exercise off Hawaii’s coast, the first such drills since 2017, when relations between Seoul and Tokyo hit their lowest point in years.
Washington is Seoul’s key security ally and stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to purportedly protect it from its nuclear-armed neighbor.
The two countries have long carried out joint exercises, which they insist are purely defensive but North Korea sees as provocative.