US, South Korea and Japan kick off Freedom Edge trilateral military exercise

The annual South Korea-Japan-US Freedom Edge multidomain exercise kicked off Monday, continuing trilateral military cooperation even after Washington sharply scaled back a major bilateral drill with Seoul last month.

The five-day exercise will run through Friday in international waters east and south of Jeju Island, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Major naval and air assets from the three countries will take part, with the drills covering maritime, air and cyber domains. The three sides will also jointly operate an exercise control group, the JCS said.

The JCS described Freedom Edge as an annual defensive exercise aimed at strengthening deterrence and response capabilities against North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and safeguarding regional peace and stability.

The exercise comes less than three weeks after the South Korea-US Ulchi Freedom Shield joint exercise was abruptly cut short following an order from US President Donald Trump.

UFS, originally scheduled for Aug. 17-27, ended Aug. 21. Associated live training events were also reduced, with some canceled or converted to simulations. Trump cited the cost of the drills and his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, while saying the exercises sent a "totally inappropriate and hostile" signal to Pyongyang.

The contrast between the scaled-back bilateral exercise and the continuation of the trilateral drills is fueling concerns in Seoul over whether Washington is shifting its military priorities from Korea-specific deterrence toward a broader regional posture focused increasingly on China.

Lee Han-gyu, East Asia Pacific research manager at the US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, raised such concerns in a report published by ACLED on Aug. 21.

"Looking ahead, the shortening of joint military exercises could weaken deterrence against the North and point to a wider US shift," Lee said.

Referring to the US National Defense Strategy's focus on deterring China and defending the First Island Chain, Lee added, "The question now is whether US Forces based in South Korea are being repositioned for that wider posture rather than fixed Korean peninsula defense."

Some experts, however, caution that changes to Korea-US exercises should not automatically be equated with weakened deterrence, arguing that the key question is how such adjustments are coordinated and what measures are taken to preserve readiness.

Yu Ji-hoon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said military exercises can be adjusted to reflect diplomatic needs and changes in the security environment.

"Of course, the timing, scale and format of exercises can be adjusted according to diplomatic needs and changes in the security environment," Yu said. "The issue is less about whether adjustments occur than how they are made."

Yu added that maintaining deterrence requires Seoul and Washington to share an understanding of why exercises are adjusted and what the changes are intended to achieve, while continuing to coordinate on combined readiness and other major security issues.

North Korea, meanwhile, dismissed the reduction of bilateral drills as insufficient. In an Aug. 31 Foreign Ministry statement carried by state media, Pyongyang said Washington's "hostile policy" remained unchanged, pointing in part to continued military exercises involving South Korea and Japan.