editorial

The large-scale US-ROK joint military exercises, Ulji Freedom Shield, began in every part of the ROK on August 17. The drill poses the most immediate and open threat to the security environment of the DPRK and the region.

The exercises will last for over 10 days, involving US troops in the ROK and the ROK army as the mainstay as well as US army reinforcements from outside and forces of member states of the "UN Command". And these frantic exercises cover all spheres for carrying out actual wartime operations including the ground, sea, air, space, cyber and psychological information. This is pushing again the tensions on the Korean peninsula to the threshold of a war.

In particular, all the major units under the US 8th Army, including the 2nd Infantry Division, the 19th Sustainment Command, the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade, and the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, are taking part in the drill. And various actual manoeuvres of all sorts include a combined arms live-firing exercise aimed at verifying the capability for joint precision strike and mobility, a combined wet gap crossing exercise and a joint logistic support manoeuvre for providing war supplies in contingency.

Nevertheless, before starting the exercises, the military warmongers of the US and the ROK described the drill as an "annual" and "defensive" one in public with the aim of hiding the aggressive and provocative nature of the largest-ever exercises.

Such a drill, which has been staged for decades despite the changes of regime in the US and the ROK, cannot be regarded only as a bad habitual military practice of the enemy states. And we can never get used to it.

As everybody knows, the enemies' war drill is not a simple course of preparations and review. 

It differs in its mission, form, scale and training methods every time. All the elements of the war drill have been developing into extremely dangerous ones, quite different from the past ones. And it is being desperately oriented towards enhancing the actual fighting capacity in the war exercises against the DPRK and gaining the decisive ascendancy in the security structure in the Korean peninsula and the rest of the region.

The main point of the current drill is to perform "practical training reflecting the changing security environment" and to "improve effectiveness". And its scenarios are ceaselessly being tailored to adapt to new modern war manuals and ways analyzed through recent war practices.

The US-ROK command post training under the simulated conditions of contingency in the Korean peninsula, over ten rounds of field manoeuvres and even the "all-government combined exercise" which the ROK stages independently by enlisting more than 4 000 agencies and over 580 000 personnel across the country feature supplemented elements of ultra-modern operations such as AI, drone and cyber.

What is all the more serious is that the US-led "UN Command" which played an auxiliary role in the Ulji Freedom Shield exercises only a few years ago is kick-starting in real earnest to revive its combat function and expand its role, talking about "contribution in new spheres such as intelligence, cyber and space," with the exercises as an occasion.

Prior to the drill, the deputy commander of the "UN Command" said that it would be the strongest deterrence when the countries sharing the same intention counter together and the posture would be combined stronger when the US-ROK alliance and the UN Command are added, making it a fait accompli to hurl into an actual war the largest-ever multinational aggression forces which abused the cap of the "UN forces" in case of contingency in the Korean peninsula as in the 1950s.

This is a development that cannot be overlooked. It visually shows that the ROK bordering the DPRK is turning into not only a training ground of the US-ROK military alliance but also a gathering place of multinational aggression forces and a test ground of modern warfare for violating the security sphere of the DPRK and other independent countries in the region.

The dangerous escalation of the war drill staged by the US and its vassal forces is posing a more serious threat to the security rights of the DPRK and this will lead to the further deterioration of the situation of the Korean peninsula and the Asia-Pacific region.

The present situation makes us keenly realize what we should do.

The DPRK's exercise of its right to self-defence will be translated into ever more vigorous action to completely neutralize the enemies' military threat until the enemy states give up their reckless dream of overwhelming someone by force and completely abandon their attempt to break the balance of force in Northeast Asia beyond the Korean peninsula and the Asia-Pacific region.

It is necessary to counter the threatening manoeuvres of the enemies which are growing ever more serious with newly-developed strength.

The DPRK will always put all the enemies violating and threatening its sovereign security in the precisely-aiming range of its annihilating, retaliatory means.

All the war drills for aggression staged by the enemy states in the Korean peninsula and the region will never produce the results desired by them.