Freedom Shield rift: South Korea, US at odds over war games’ scale

Every spring, South Korea and the United States stage one of their largest combined military exercises in a show of force that North Korea invariably denounces as a rehearsal for war. This year, Seoul wants to dial them back, wagering that smaller drills could open a diplomatic door that has been shut since 2019. A joint press briefing on the Freedom Shield exercise that had been scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed amid differences over the scope of the drills, according to Yonhap news agency, citing military sources. Seoul has reportedly suggested paring back the large-scale troop and equipment deployments that Pyongyang finds particularly provocative and spreading combined field training across the year rather than concentrating it in a single high-profile period. But US officials are said to find the proposed cuts difficult to accept as additional American troops and equipment have already been deployed at considerable cost, based on plans locked in a year ago. A spokesman for South Korea’s defence ministry insisted the exercise would still go ahead as planned and said coordination on the drills was ongoing. “The Freedom Shield exercise, planned for March, will take place normally,” he told local media, adding that further details would be announced later this month or in early March. The spokesman said the drills would focus on verifying capabilities linked to the eventual transfer of wartime operational control, which currently rests with US Forces Korea, to the South Korean military. Washington and Seoul have long described the joint exercise, which simulates worst-case scenarios such as a full-scale conflict with North Korea, as purely defensive. Pyongyang has never accepted that framing, however, denouncing the drills as rehearsals for invasion and routinely responding with missile launches and counter-exercises of its own. That cycle of provocation and counter-provocation is precisely what Seoul’s government is now trying to interrupt, analysts say. President Lee Jae Myung, whose administration brands itself as “pragmatic”, came to office determined to step out of the shadow of impeached former president Yoon Suk-yeol, whose confrontational posture left inter-Korean relations in the doldrums. Lee is now trying to reorient South Korean policy towards peaceful coexistence, according to Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies. “Washington should respect Seoul’s position and adjust the training accordingly,” he said. Yellow Sea stand-off The Freedom Shield dispute sits within a broader pattern of increasing friction between the two allies. Last week, South Korea’s top defence officials lodged a rare formal protest with US Forces Korea after American and Chinese fighter jets were engaged in a stand-off during a training exercise over the Yellow Sea. The flight plans of the US fighter jets that flew near China’s Air Defence Identification Zone had not been shared in advance with South Korean military authorities, local media reported. Separately, Lee’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea is pushing forward legislation that would grant Seoul access to the southern portion of the demilitarised zone that separates the two Koreas for non-military purposes, bypassing the case-by-case approval process currently required from the US-led United Nations Command. The UN Command responded last month with a press conference opposing the bill, arguing it conflicts with the 1953 Armistice Agreement. Doo Jin-ho, director of the Korea Research Institute for National Security’s Eurasia Centre, said the accumulation of these disputes was self-defeating. “Frictions between the two allies should be addressed quietly rather than being exposed to the public to avoid damaging the soundness of the alliance,” he said. “To counter a nuclear-armed North Korea as a non-nuclear state, South Korea must ensure the stable operation of US extended deterrence.” With a US delegation expected in Seoul early next month to discuss a bilateral trade agreement and South Korea’s plans to construct nuclear-powered submarines, the window for resolving these tensions is closing, according to Doo. “If delayed, it would serve as an alarm bell for the alliance,” he warned. ‘Candy and bullets’ Kim Yeol-soo, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, noted that US President Donald Trump’s earlier decision to curtail joint drills had helped create the conditions for his summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018 and 2019 – talks that ultimately collapsed over denuclearisation. “Both the United States and South Korea feel the need to readjust the exercises to improve the atmosphere for dialogue with the North,” he said. Trump has since expressed renewed interest in reviving talks with Pyongyang, despite the Kim regime maintaining a near total freeze on engagement with either Washington or Seoul since 2019’s failed summit diplomacy, pivoting instead towards Moscow amid the war in Ukraine. Observers are watching two events for clues about how events might unfold: Trump’s coming State of the Union address, expected to signal his Indo-Pacific strategy and North Korea policy; and the outcome of North Korea’s ongoing ninth party congress, which will define Pyongyang’s posture towards Seoul and Washington for the next five years. On Sunday, the congress re-elected Kim as party chief, praising him for strengthening the country’s nuclear deterrent and steering it towards a dual-track era of military expansion and economic development – a policy state media has dubbed “candy and bullets”.

Freedom Shield rift: South Korea, US at odds over war games’ scale

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Washington is reportedly pushing back on Seoul’s request for smaller drills, forcing the postponement of a major joint military briefing

Washington is reportedly pushing back on Seoul’s request for smaller drills, forcing the postponement of a major joint military briefing