South Korea and the US have recently struck a different cord on whether to resume their joint outdoor military drills, though last month’s meeting between the leaders of the two countries was seen as contributing to further bolstering the seven-decade alliance.
The allies canceled or reduced their combined exercises following the 2018 summit between then-US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to help carry forward negotiations on denuclearizing the North. Scaled-down exercises have mostly been held via computer simulations.
US military leaders have expressed concerns that the allies’ combined exercises are becoming computer-simulated war games, raising the need to resume field training drills involving the actual mobilization of troops and equipment.
But South Korea has insisted on sticking to computer-simulated exercises, citing the protracted COVID-19 pandemic. Its passive attitude toward putting the combined drills back on track also reflects the Moon administration’s wish to forge the environment for pushing ahead with its Korean Peninsula peace process.
In a joint press conference with Moon following their summit, US President Joe Biden pledged to provide full vaccinations for all 550,000 South Korean troops “both for their sake, as well as the sake of the American forces.” His pledge was seen by some observers as intended to prod South Korea to be more positive to resuming joint field exercises with the US as early as in August when a regular combined drill is set to begin.
But Seoul remains cautious on the matter.
In a meeting with the heads of five major political parties here Wednesday, Moon said it might be difficult for a large number of troops from the allies to undergo a combined field exercise in the near future due to current conditions. A spokesperson of Seoul’s Defense Ministry said later that the upcoming combined summertime drill is supposed to take the form of the computer-simulated command post exercise.
But US officials appear unhesitant to express their disagreement.
Asked to comment on the remarks by Moon, a spokesman for the US Defense Department stressed that joint military drills are “a principal method” of ensuring the readiness of South Korean and US forces. He said the allies’ training events are non-provocative, defensive in nature and are intended to ensure they are ready to “fight tonight,” noting the scope, scale and timing of future exercises will be determined through close bilateral consultations “with these factors in mind.”
South Korea seems to seek to highlight Biden’s agreement to commit to diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang to achieve the denuclearization of the peninsula.
The Unification Ministry said in a report to the National Assembly on Friday that it will push to restore communication lines and dialogue with North Korea based on “sufficient conditions” for engagement created by the Moon-Biden summit. Jeong Se-hyun, a former unification minister who currently serves as the vice chairperson of the presidential advisory council on national unification, called on Seoul and Washington on the same day to suspend their planned joint drills to bring the North back to the negotiating table.
But just focusing on engagement with Pyongyang while remaining reluctant to resume full-scale joint drills by the allies is far from a balanced way of following through with the agreement reached at the summit on consolidating the alliance.
North Korea has continued to test-fire short-range ballistic missiles and large-caliber multiple rocket launchers, which aim at US military bases and other targets in the South, despite decisions by Seoul and Washington to cancel, suspend or reduce joint drills.
Some officials and politicians here worry that resuming scaled-up outdoor drills might give Pyongyang a pretext for making more serious provocations. It may or may not. But in the long run, conducting joint exercises to their full extent would help not only strengthen the security posture of the allies but draw the recalcitrant regime to the negotiating table. It would only play into the North’s hands if the South continues to balk at resuming scaled-up outdoor drills with the US when Pyongyang shows no changes in its intransigent stance.
In a Twitter message on his summit with Moon, which was retweeted by Moon on Saturday, Biden said the South Korea-US alliance was forged on the battlefield over 70 years ago, adding they recommitted themselves to “this ironclad alliance.”
Certainly, discord over combined exercises is the least thing such an ironclad alliance could allow.
