Defense Department Says that Foal Eagle Exercise with South Korea Will Be “Reorganized”

It looks like many servicemembers serving stateside will not be going TDY to Korea for Foal Eagle:

Seoul and Washington will scale back a major annual joint military drill next spring, the Foal Eagle exercise, said U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis Wednesday, a concession to ongoing denuclearization talks with North Korea.

Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington, “Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy.”

South Korea and the United States have suspended several major joint exercises this year following the June 12 North Korea-U.S. summit, including the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian drills, which would have happened in August.

Vigilant Ace, a massive joint aerial exercise scheduled for December, was also suspended last month after a meeting between South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and Mattis. The United States and South Korea agreed to conduct a review by Nov. 15 and reach a decision on plans for large-scale military exercises next year by Dec. 1.

“We have taken a decision,” Mattis said Wednesday. “We are not canceling exercises. We are realigning one exercise.” He did not elaborate further.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the article did not state what the way ahead is for the Key Resolve exercise that usually overlaps with Foal Eagle.  Key Resolve is a large command post exercise involving senior US and ROK leadership usually held in the spring time.  Key Resolve was the last major exercise conducted jointly with the ROK before the current “peace mood” has caused the cancelling of a number of exercises.