U.S. and South Korea to Begin Scaled Down Military Exercise This Week

Even though the bilateral military exercise has been scaled down I suspect North Korea will still complain about it when it is executed:

South Korea on Sunday formally announced it will kick off combined military exercises with the United States on Tuesday, with drills to be scaled down this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  
   
In a statement, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the allies will conduct computerized combined command post training from Aug. 18 to 28, with “all relevant conditions, such as the Covid-19 situation, comprehensively considered.”  
   
The adjustments made to the drills, which the JCS said would be focused on maintaining the allies’ combined defense posture, signaled a major setback to South Korea’s timetable to retrieve wartime Operational Control (Opcon) of its forces.  
   
Seoul had strongly pushed for the summertime exercises in spite of the ongoing pandemic in order to conduct an assessment of South Korea’s full operational capability (FOC) — a necessary step in the Opcon transfer process which Seoul had envisioned to complete by the end of President Moon Jae-in’s term in 2022.  
   
But this month’s drills would only “partly” feature a rehearsal for how the allied command structure would operate with a South Korean general in command, the JCS said, hinting that the FOC assessment will not be completed. (……)

Military sources said the effective postponement of the FOC assessment this month was owed to U.S. reluctance due to the coronavirus, which has prevented U.S. troops stationed in Hawaii, Guam and Japan from joining the drills. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

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