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U.S., South Korea replace spring military drills with smaller exercises

The Associated Press

South Korea and the U.S. are eliminating their massive springtime military drills and replacing them with smaller exercises in what they call an effort to support diplomacy aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.

The decision announced by both countries in early March 2019 came after U.S. President Donald Trump complained about the cost of joint drills even as his high-stakes second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended without an agreement in late February 2019.

The drills’ cancellation is an olive branch to North Korea, which has viewed them as an invasion rehearsal. Some experts, however, say the downscaling will likely weaken the allies’ military readiness amid worries that tensions erupt again in the wake of the failed nuclear summit in Vietnam.

The Pentagon said in a news release that the U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs decided to conclude the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle series of exercises. It said the allies agreed to maintain firm military readiness through newly designed command post exercises and revised field training programs. (Pictured: Republic of Korea Marines and U.S. Soldiers aim their weapons near amphibious assault vehicles during past U.S.-South Korea joint landing military exercises as part of annual joint military exercise Foal Eagle in 2015 between the two countries in Pohang, South Korea.)

Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo “made clear that the alliance decision to adapt our training program reflected our desire to reduce tension and support our diplomatic efforts to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a final, fully verified manner,” the statement said.

Seoul’s Defense Ministry released a similar statement.

Jeong expressed regret at the lack of agreement at the Trump-Kim summit but still hopes that Washington and Pyongyang will continue negotiations, the South Korean statement said.

The new training, dubbed Dong Maeng, which means “alliance” in English, ran March 4-12. It focused on “strategic operational and tactical aspects of general military operations on the Korean Peninsula,” South Korea’s military and the U.S.-South Korean combined forces command said in a joint statement.

According to U.S. officials, the new training will be done in smaller drills, tabletop exercises and simulations, and will involve smaller units such as battalions and companies rather than massive formations involving thousands of troops, as they had in the past.

Officials said the Pentagon would focus on smaller exercises and mission-essential tasks, which include the ability to integrate airstrikes and the use of other weapons systems, drones, surveillance assets, logistics and communications.

In November 2018, a month before he resigned as U.S. defense secretary, Jim Mattis disclosed that the U.S. and South Korea would scale back and tone down the spring exercises. He said the aim was to avoid setting back diplomacy over North Korea’s nuclear weapons. He described it as a reorganization of the exercises, not an end to maneuvers on the peninsula.

Trump has also pushed South Korea to increase its financial contribution for the cost of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country as deterrence against North Korea.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

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