South Korea and the United States kicked off a major combined military exercise Monday to reinforce deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats amid concern Pyongyang could use the maneuvers as a pretext for provocations.
The annual Freedom Shield exercise got under way for an 11-day run amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s continued saber-rattling, including artillery firings near the western sea border and a series of missile launches.
The springtime exercise marks the first one after Pyongyang in November scrapped a 2018 inter-Korean military accord designed to reduce tensions along the border, raising concerns of the North possibly staging provocative military demonstrations.
Pyongyang has long denounced the allies’ military drills as rehearsals for an invasion against it and has a track record of conducting missile launches in protest of such exercises, though Seoul and Washington have said such exercises are purely defensive.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries said the latest exercise is aimed at improving their combined defense posture, noting that it will focus on multi-domain operations by utilizing land, sea, air, cyber and space assets, and countering the North’s nuclear operations.
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240303001700315?section=national/defense
