SEOUL, South Korea -- The South Korean and U.S. militaries have agreed to shorten their drills at the U.S.'s request, South Korean officials said Wednesday, a move that likely reflected President Donald Trump’s hopes to reengage with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but could undermine a U.S.-South Korean defense readiness.
Trump had ordered his Pentagon chief to “substantially reduce” the allies’ summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, just before they began Monday for an 11-day run. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to join the U.S. war against Iran.
South Korea’s military said in a statement the ongoing drills with the U.S. would end Friday, not Aug. 27 as initially planned. It said the allies also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises.
The statement said South Korea and the U.S. will discuss and carry out various steps to achieve objectives of their drills and establish combined defense postures.
Many experts say Trump’s move threatens to hurt combined U.S.-South Korean defense posture and eventually weaken their decades-long alliance.
Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies’ ability to deal with potential North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold field a set of training exercises during the command post exercise period.
The drills and a similar springtime exercise are a central pillar of the U.S. -South Korea alliance, which dates to the 1950-53 Korean War. But it’s also a long-running source of tensions with North Korea, which has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion and responded with provocative missile tests. Days before this month's drills began, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea.
This month's drills were reportedly supposed to be held in two phases — the first part until this Friday with a focus on defensive operations in simulation of North Korean attacks and the second part until Aug. 27 to practice counteroffensive operations. North Korea is typically extremely sensitive to counteroffensive drills.
North Korea hasn't responded to Trump's overture. But earlier Wednesday, its state news agency, KCNA, published a commentary slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as “frantic” and “extremely dangerous” and vowing to completely frustrate its rivals’ hostilities.
“The dangerous escalation of the war drills staged by the U.S. and its vassal forces is posing a more serious threat to the security rights” of North Korea, the commentary said. “Our exercise of its right to self-defense will continue to completely neutralize the enemies’ military threat.”
Many experts said Kim, now emboldened by his advancing nuclear program and expanding military cooperation with Russia, won't likely embrace Trump's overture anytime soon unless he's promised bigger concessions. In response to Trump's previous outreach, Kim suggested last year that he can return to talks only after the U.S. drops its demand of a North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy.
Trump and Kim met three times from 2018-2019 but their high-stakes diplomacy eventually fell apart over wrangling over a North Korean demand for extensive sanctions relief in return for limited denuclearization steps.
On Monday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's office expressed hopes that a “friendly relationship” between Trump and Kim would lead to “meaningful dialogue” between their countries to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. This drew a strong backlash from conservatives, who alleged Lee's government was prioritizing the resumption of Kim-Trump diplomacy over security concerns caused by Trump's move.
