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UPI
4 days ago
- Politics
- UPI
U.S., South Korea to start large-scale joint military drills Aug. 18
1 of 3 | South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Col. Lee Sung-jun (L) and U.S. Forces Korea spokesman Col. Ryan Donald hold a press briefing at Seoul's Defense Ministry on Thursday to announce the upcoming Ulchi Freedom Shield 25 joint military exercise. The exercise will take place from Aug. 18-28. Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI SEOUL, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- The United States and South Korea will kick off a major joint military exercise this month, both countries announced Thursday, with a focus on deterring North Korea's growing threats amid unrequited diplomatic outreach from Seoul. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise will take place Aug. 18-28 and will incorporate "realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts ... to further strengthen the Alliance's readiness and capabilities through combined, joint, all-domain operations," the militaries said in a joint statement. The exercise will include live field maneuvers, computer simulation-based command post exercises and related civil defense drills. "This iteration of UFS 25 will be executed on a similar scale to the previous iteration," Col. Lee Sung-jun, spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a joint press briefing in Seoul on Thursday. Some 18,000 South Korean troops will take part, Lee said. U.S. Forces Korea did not disclose the number of participating troops. The exercise comes as the administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is attempting to improve frayed relations with Pyongyang, which frequently condemns the allies' joint drills as rehearsals for an invasion. Col. Lee said that roughly half of the 40 planned field training exercises will be rescheduled to next month, but dismissed any political motives behind the decision. "The military has comprehensively assessed based on multiple factors, including ensuring training conditions due to the recent heat wave, as well as maintaining a balanced ROK-U.S. combined readiness posture ... and made the decision to reschedule certain training events to next month," Lee said. "Any training events linked to the combined exercise scenario as well as [those] having any deployed assets or personnel to the Peninsula by the U.S. will proceed as planned," he added. North Korea, which has strengthened military ties with Russia and continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs, will be a focus of the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, U.S. Forces Korea spokesman Col. Ryan Donald said at the briefing. "We'll work to deter and defeat the DPRK's various threats, such as their weapons of mass destruction," Donald said, using the official acronym for North Korea. The training will draw on information from ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, he said, as well as the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. "We take those lessons learned from the modern battlefield and incorporate that," Donald said. "We are focused on assuring the alliance remains strategically sustainable, credibly deters aggression from the DPRK and addresses broader regional challenges." The exercise will also address threats from terrorism, drones, GPS jamming and cyberattacks, both officials said. It will include a scenario on a North Korean missile launch but would not cover nuclear use by Pyongyang, Lee added. North Korea has not yet publicly commented on this year's exercise. Last week, Kim Yo Jong -- the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Yo Jong -- condemned Seoul's "blind trust" in its military alliance with Washington and rejected efforts by the Lee Jae Myung administration to improve relations. In their joint statement released Thursday, the allies stressed that the exercise is "defensive in nature." In addition to U.S. and South Korean forces, personnel from other member countries of the United Nations Command will join the exercise, while the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission will observe to monitor compliance with the Armistice Agreement. The U.S.-led UNC plays a key role in maintaining and enforcing the armistice agreement that halted fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, with duties that include controlling DMZ access and communicating with the North Korean military.
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The real threat on Korean Peninsula: Chinese, North Korean political warfare
July 30 (UPI) -- Amid escalating tensions between conservatives and liberals in South Korea, and as the world fixates on North Korea's menacing nuclear arsenal, a more insidious threat is shaping the fate of the Korean Peninsula: sophisticated and largely covert political warfare orchestrated by the regimes in Beijing and Pyongyang. While missile launches and rhetoric grab international headlines, China's strategy of "unrestricted warfare" and the Kim family's brand of "political warfare with Juche characteristics" are quietly undermining the Republic of Korea from within, eroding its democracy and threatening the pillars of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Unrestricted warfare and "three warfares" in the Korean context China's concept of "unrestricted warfare" -- popularized by the People's Liberation Army and operationalized through the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department -- goes far beyond traditional battlefield engagement. It includes a coordinated, all-domain campaign of "three warfares," psychological operations, legal, or lawfare, maneuvers and media/public opinion warfare. The goal of these tactics is clear: to weaken adversaries without firing a shot, minimize attribution and gain strategic dominance by sowing confusion, division and dependency in targeted societies. In South Korea, the United Front Work Department plays a pivotal role in coordinating influence operations. The department actively seeks to suppress dissent against the Chinese Communist Party, monitor diaspora communities and foster loyalty among ethnic Chinese within South Korea. Organizations such as the All-Korean Nationals of Chinese Descent Council mirror similar work department-aligned groups worldwide, cultivating pro-Beijing sentiment and integrating the community under CCP-friendly leadership. Intelligence gathering, elite capture, economic coercion and technology transfer are just a few of the tactics employed to shape South Korean policy and public opinion in ways that align with Beijing's interests. Political warfare with Juche characteristics: North Korea's hand North Korea, under the Kim family regime, has long waged political warfare, guided by its own Juche ideology, as a core weapon against the South. Pro-North Korean elements within South Korea, spanning political figures, civic organizations and clandestine networks pursue active subversion. Their efforts, sometimes lead to legal intervention, fuel political controversies and polarization, further complicating South Korea's internal dynamics. These activities are not theoretical concerns; they are ongoing, with direct implications for key political events such as the snap presidential election held last June. Covert assistance from Pyongyang's United Front Department and the Reconnaissance General Bureau supports agents of influence in the South, aiming to delegitimize Seoul's democratic institutions and fracture the U.S.-ROK security partnership. The subtle power of covert action One of the defining qualities of Chinese and North Korean influence operations is mastery of covert action. Their tradecraft is designed around deniability: admit nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusations to undermine any allegations of illicit activities. The lack of overt evidence is not proof of innocence, but rather a hallmark of skillful subversion and effective tradecraft. When credible exposés or documentaries reveal such operations, well-coordinated attacks arise, not organically, but as orchestrated disinformation campaigns intended to discredit the truth and intimidate dissenters. The almost instantaneous, highly synchronized responses to critical media coverage of Chinese or North Korean influence operations in South Korea reveal the depth of planning and forethought -- not spontaneous public backlash, but a calculated attempt to manipulate perceptions and stifle legitimate concerns. Strategic objectives undermining democracy and the alliance The objectives of China and North Korea are inextricably linked. Beijing views a weak or politically fractured South Korea as a strategic advantage, undermining U.S. influence in the region and shifting the balance of power in favor of Chinese interests. Simultaneously, Pyongyang seeks to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, undermine the legitimacy of South Korea's democracy and eventually end the U.S. nuclear umbrella, as well as the American military presence on the peninsula. Both regimes benefit from mutual reinforcement: Chinese support for North Korean provocations and Pyongyang's subversive leverage serves the broader aim of turning the Korean Peninsula into a fault line in U.S.-China strategic competition. This shared interest sustains a persistent campaign to destabilize the South, not just through conventional threats, but by eroding the very fabric of Korean society and politics from within. South Korea: battleground of strategic competition The Korean Peninsula is no longer just a flashpoint for North Korean military threats or domestic political struggles; it is ground zero in the broader clash between U.S.-led democratic alliances and authoritarian great power ambitions. Rather than simply preparing for open aggression, South Korea must recognize and counter the unseen campaigns waged daily by its northern neighbor and the world's most powerful authoritarian state. Ignoring or dismissing these operations as "fake news" or conspiracy theory only serves the interests of Beijing and Pyongyang. Their sophisticated political warfare is a direct assault on South Korea's independence, democratic institutions and its alliance with the United States. Recognizing and exposing these malign activities, however subtle, covert or denied, is the first step to ensuring South Korea's sovereignty, security and continued prosperity. South Korea must therefore invest in robust counterintelligence, civic education and information resilience to protect its democratic system. Only by acknowledging the true nature of the threat, one that operates invisibly but with strategic intent, can the Korean Peninsula avoid being reshaped according to the designs of those who seek its division and subjugation. David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation. After he retired, he became associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is the editor at large for the Small Wars Journal.
The Mainichi
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Mainichi
Top uniformed officers of S. Korea, US, Japan reaffirm cooperation
SEOUL (Kyodo) -- The top uniformed officers of South Korea, the United States and Japan reaffirmed defense cooperation to address the growing missile threat from North Korea, during their talks in Seoul on Friday. Adm. Kim Myung Soo, chief of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Gen. Dan Caine and Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, met for the first time since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in early June. Yoshida's trip to South Korea marked the first by a chief of Japan's Joint Staff since 2010, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry. "As the North Korean nuclear and missile threats continue to grow and security challenges persist in the region, it is crucial to maintain the momentum of ROK-U.S.-Japan security cooperation and further develop it," Kim said at the outset of their talks. ROK is an acronym for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name. Caine also stressed trilateral cooperation, noting the United States remains focused on reestablishing deterrence, given what he described as "an unprecedented military buildup" by North Korea and China. Yoshida said the aim of his trip to Seoul was to ensure that trilateral defense cooperation remains resilient "regardless of political changes in each country" so that progress continues steadily. On the same day, the three countries conducted a joint aerial exercise over international waters off South Korea's southern island of Jeju, marking the first deployment of a U.S. B-52H bomber to the Korean Peninsula this year, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. The exercise, which also involved South Korean KF-16 fighter jets and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2 fighter jets, aims to enhance deterrence and response capabilities against North Korea's increasingly sophisticated nuclear and missile threats, the ministry said.
Epoch Times
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
The Evolving Role of US Forces in Korea
Commentary The presence of U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) has long served as a cornerstone of the Republic of Korea–United States (ROK-U.S.) alliance, functioning as both a deterrent against North Korean aggression and a symbol of the U.S. commitment to security on the Korean Peninsula. However, amid intensifying strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and shifting priorities within Washington, the traditional role of USFK is being redefined. This evolution carries profound implications—not only for the future structure of the alliance, but also for deterrence, regional stability, and South Korea's own defense posture.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
South Korea, US wrap up annual military drills, stage joint river-crossing
YEONCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea and the United States wrapped up on Thursday 11 days of annual joint military drills known as Freedom Shield, which included staging a river-crossing exercise close to the heavily militarised border with North Korea. The militaries of the two countries reaffirmed their alliance and strengthened their defensive posture during the drills, U.S. Forces Korea and South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The river-crossing exercise, which was held in Yeoncheon, an area near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, involved some 600 troops, as well as 100 armoured vehicles and aircraft, according to South Korea's defence ministry. "This training provided an opportunity for the brigade soldiers to experience the importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance and maximize the interoperability of river-crossing equipment," Major Jung Byung-hyuk of the South Korean army said after the river-crossing exercise. ROK refers to the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name. South Korean and U.S troops had built a 180-metre (196.85 yards) floating bridge in order to allow armoured vehicles to cross a river, according to the ministry. "Regardless of politics, when asked the soldiers in these formations both U.S. and ROK are standing side by side ready to support the U.S.-ROK alliance," Lieutenant Colonel Brent Kinney of the U.S. Army said when asked about the current political situation in South Korea. South Korea has been suffering its worst political crisis in decades after President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly imposed martial law in December. The Constitutional Court is due to rule on whether to uphold his impeachment by parliament in coming days. Pyongyang has long demanded a halt to U.S.-South Korea joint exercises, branding them a prelude to an invasion. North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles earlier this month, hours after condemning the South Korean and U.S. militaries for launching the drills that the North called a "dangerous provocative act."
