U.S., South Korea to begin military drills

The Ulchi Freedom Shield drills will be from Aug. 22 to Sept. 1, the South Korean military said Tuesday. The drills are meant to be a continuation of joint military exercises that the Trump administration stopped in 2019 in an effort to de-escalate tensions with North Korea. The U.S. Department of Defense also said the United States, South Korea, and Japan cooperated in missile warning and ballistic missile search and tracking exercises last week. Defense officials said those exercises were aimed at building cooperation in response to North Korean opposition. 

What will the new drills include? Next week’s drills will reportedly simulate joint attacks, front-line reinforcements of arms and fuel, and removals of weapons of mass destruction. The countries will also learn from the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and train for drone strikes as well as civilian and military responses to attacks on ports and industrial sites. Neither the South Korean government nor the White House has said how many troops will be involved, but in the past, the drills usually included roughly 10,000 American and 200,000 Korean soldiers. 

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s report in The World and Everything in It podcast on why North Korea’s threats should be taken seriously.