Pyongyang, August 19 (KCNA) — The large-scale U.S.- 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 DPRK and the regional security.
The exercises will last for over 10 days, involving U.S. troops in the ROK and the ROK army as the mainstay of the exercises as well as extra-regional U.S. reinforcements and forces of member states of the “UN Command”. And these frantic exercises cover all spheres of carrying out 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 U.S. 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 maneuvers of the drill 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 maneuver for providing war supplies in contingency.
Nevertheless, prior to the exercises, the military warmongers of the U.S. and the ROK described the drill as “annual” and “defensive” one in public with the aim of hiding the aggressive and provocative nature of the largest-ever exercises.
Such drill, which has been staged for decades despite the changes of regimes in the U.S. 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 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 improving 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 drill is to perform “practical training reflecting the changing security environment” and to “improve effectiveness”. And its scenarios are being tailored to adapt to new modern war manuals and ways analyzed in recent wars.
The U.S.-ROK command post training under the simulated conditions of contingency in the Korean peninsula, the field training exercise which was waged more than ten times and even the “all-government combined exercise” which the ROK is staging 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 U.S.-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 ongoing 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 strong combination of posture when the ROK-U.S. alliance and UN Command are added, making it a fait accompli to hurl into an actual war the largest-ever multinational aggression forces by misusing the name of the “UN forces” in case of contingency on the Korean peninsula as it did in the 1950s of the last century.
This is a development that can not be overlooked. It visually shows that the ROK bordering the DPRK is turning into not only the training ground of the U.S.-ROK military alliance but also a gathering place of multinational aggression forces and a test ground of modern warfare for occupying the security sphere of the DPRK and the independent countries in the region.
The dangerous escalation of the war drills staged by the U.S. 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 continue 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 strength in Northeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region beyond the Korean peninsula.
It is necessary to counter the threatening maneuvers of the enemies which are getting serious as the time goes by with newly-developed strength.
The DPRK will always put all the enemies violating and threatening its sovereign security in the sighting range for precision and annihilating strike by its retaliatory means.
All the war drills for aggression staged by the enemy states in the Korean peninsula and the region will never produce the result desired by them. -0-
