Seoul, Feb 25: South Korea and the United States will stage their annual joint springtime military exercise next month to strengthen their combined defense posture as they are preparing for the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from Washington to Seoul, the allies’ militaries said Wednesday.
The Freedom Shield (FS) exercise is scheduled to take place from March 9-19, involving the field training exercise dubbed “Warrior Shield,” according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the US Forces Korea (USFK).
The allies’ militaries said the upcoming drills will help further strengthen the alliance’s readiness and capabilities through combined, joint, all-domain operations.
“This exercise will also serve as an opportunity to support ongoing preparations for a condition-based wartime operational transition, consistent with alliance agreement,” they said in a joint statement.
South Korea is seeking to achieve the “conditions-based” handover of wartime command from the US within President Lee Jae Myung’s five-year term that ends in 2030.
As part of efforts for the “swift” transfer, the allies have agreed to complete the verification of Seoul’s Full Operational Capability (FOC), the second part of a three-stage program to assess its capabilities to lead the allies’ combined forces, by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the allies are likely to scale down some field training during the FS exercise from the previous year, according to sources.
Washington reportedly had expressed reservations over Seoul’s proposal to minimise field training as the Lee government seeks to mend ties with North Korea.
South Korea is seeking to create conditions conducive to the resumption of possible dialogue between the US and North Korea ahead of US President Donald Trump’s summit talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April, Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korea has long denounced the Seoul-Washington combined military exercise as rehearsals for invasion though the allies said the drills are defensive in nature.
The South Korean and US militaries conduct major combined drills each year featuring computer simulation-based command post exercises, holding the FS exercise in March and the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise in August.
–IANS