It will be interesting to see if the Kim regime uses this visit and the joint announcement as a reason to launch an ICBM in the coming days:
The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States have agreed to further expand the countries’ joint military exercises amid intensifying North Korean provocations, they said in a joint statement released Tuesday.
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also agreed to continue taking strong steps against North Korean provocations.
“The two leaders also pledged to further expand and bolster the level and scale of this year’s combined exercises and training,” said the joint statement released by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Considering the nuclear threats the Kim regime has continued to make against South Korea it makes sense to plan for how to respond to their use:
South Korea and the United States plan to stage a combined military exercise next month under the scenario of use of a nuclear weapon by North Korea, Seoul’s defense ministry said Wednesday in its report to President Yoon Suk Yeol on major policy tasks this year.
Among other plans are holding a 11-day springtime South Korea-U.S. exercise without a break, conducting a final test of a homegrown solid-propellant space rocket and launching the country’s first military surveillance satellite.
Led by the allies’ Deterrence Strategy Committee (DSC), the discussion-based Table-Top Exercise (TTX) is set to take place in the U.S. in the latter half of February, as the two sides agreed to hold it annually at a bilateral defense ministerial meeting in November last year, according to the ministry.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Not a good look for President Yoon that he is getting out in front of the U.S. on the discussion of conducting Joint nuclear exercises:
The White House statement came hours after Biden, responding to a reporter’s question as he exited Marine One, said he was not discussing joint nuclear exercises with South Korea.
The president’s short denial at the White House follows Yoon’s interview with the Seoul-based Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Sunday, in which Yoon said South Korea was holding “considerably positive” discussions with the U.S. about “joint exercise concepts” related to nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear weapons are the U.S.’s, but South Korea and the U.S. should work together in planning, information sharing, exercises and training,” Yoon said.
Biden’s response prompted a spokeswoman for Yoon, Kim Eun Hye, to clarify Tuesday that the U.S. and South Korea are discussing ways to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons, including sharing information and joint planning with concern to U.S. nuclear assets, according to a statement from the South Korean presidential office.
The reporter’s question to Biden about talks on a joint nuclear exercise lacked important context, which led the U.S. president to respond with “no,” according to Kim’s statement.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
This is a standard playbook response to North Korean missile launches from the U.S. and the ROK that has training value, but has done nothing to deter the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs:
South Korea and the United States conducted combined air drills, involving U.S. B-52 strategic bombers and F-22 stealth fighters, on Tuesday, in an effort to strengthen the credibility of America’s “extended deterrence,” Seoul’s defense ministry said.
The drills took place in the South’s air defense identification zone southwest of its southern island of Jeju amid tensions caused by the North’s launch of two medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) on Sunday.
The South’s F-35A stealth jets and F-15K fighters also joined the drills.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It will be interesting to see what increasing military cooperation with Japan will do for President Yoon’s extremely low polling numbers:
South Korea said its military will strengthen security cooperation with the U.S. and Japan, including the deployment of “U.S. strategic assets,” after Kim Jong Un’s North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles Sunday.
The provocations, in violation of United Nations Security Council’s resolutions, will strengthen sanctions against North Korea, worsen public welfare and make the regime “very unstable,” South Korea’s National Security Council said in a statement after an urgent meeting to brief President Yoon Suk Yeol. The missiles were launched from the Munchon area in Kangwon province between 1:48 a.m. and 1:58 a.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an email.
The missile tests add to 10 launched by North Korea over the past two weeks. The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group made a U-turn after one of those missiles flew over Japan. The group returned to waters off the Korean Peninsula and held missile defense exercises with naval forces from Japan and South Korea on Thursday.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but it appears the ROK is overselling sanctions making the regime “very unstable”. The Kim regime has shown it knows how to whether sanctions with help from China and Russia plus their criminal activities.
It has been five years and the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan is back conducting exercises with the ROK Navy in response to a North Korean provocation:
The USS Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered supercarrier, will arrive at the southeastern port city of Busan later this week for joint military drills with South Korea amid mounting nuclear threats from North Korea.
Korea Times
According to military sources Sunday, the Nimitz-class supercarrier will take part in combined exercises with the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy in the East Sea this month for the first time since 2017, when Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test.
The move comes immediately after the two allies issued a joint statement Friday (local time), after holding a meeting in Washington to denounce the North for passing a law earlier this month to grant its military the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also called the nation’s nuclear status “irreversible,” leaving no room for negotiation on the issue.
You can read more at the link.
It seems the U.S. and the ROK are getting their responses coordinated for whatever provocation the North Koreans have planned to execute during the upcoming Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise later this month:
South Korea and the United States are set to hold regular defense talks here next week, informed sources said Sunday, as the allies are striving to reinforce security coordination amid North Korea’s military threats.
Korea Times
The biannual Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) is expected to run from Aug. 16 to 17 in Seoul, the sources said, with the allies likely to discuss joint deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
The meeting comes amid speculation that Pyongyang has completed preparations for a nuclear test. It also comes ahead of the allies’ combined exercise, dubbed the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) training, set for Aug. 22-Sept. 1.
You can read more at the link.
This is something that has been done in the past, but was suspended under the liberal Moon Jae-in administration. Now with a new President it appears restarting trilateral cooperation may soon become a reality:
The defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Saturday to step up cooperation to counter North Korea’s missile threats through their combined regular security exercises, including missile warning drills, Seoul’s defense ministry said.
Korea Times
Lee Jong-sup and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Nobuo Kishi, reached the agreement during their gathering held on the margins of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
You can read more at the link.
This was actually quite a large grouping of fighter jets flying over the waters near Korea yesterday. Just the ROK itself flew 16 fighter jets. Unfortunately the ROK and Japan did not fly together, but instead in different groupings with American fighters:
The United States and its Asian allies flew dozens of fighter jets over waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday in a show of force as their diplomats discussed a coordinated response to a possibly imminent North Korean nuclear test.
The flights came as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveled to Seoul for discussions with South Korea and Japanese officials over the gathering North Korean threat and warned of a “swift and forceful” counterresponse if the North proceeds with a nuclear test explosion, which would be its first in nearly five years.
Yahoo News
You can read more at the link.
