Tag: Key Resolve

The Marines are coming!  The Marines are coming!:

South Korea and the United States plan to stage a joint landing drill here late this month, with three U.S. amphibious ships participating, officers said Wednesday.

Starting at the end of this month, the Marine Corps and the navies of the two nations are scheduled to hold the annual landing drill of Ssangyong in South Korea’s southern port city of Pohang “to boost capabilities of conducting the full spectrum of a combined arms, amphibious landing operation,” a military officer said.

Though the exact scale of the planned exercise is not known, officers say some 1,000 U.S. Marines and 3,000 South Koreans are to take part in the drill, which is expected to last less than a week, together with the three U.S. amphibious vessels.

“The U.S. plans to send the 25,000-ton USS Green Bay transport dock, the 41,000-ton USS Bonhomme Richard assault ship and the 15,000-ton USS Ashland dock landing ship for the exercise,” another officer said.

The Green Bay, which takes on the design for stealth capabilities, is able to deliver a fully equipped battalion of 800 Marines. It is the first time that the San Antonio-class ship has taken part in the joint drill.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I would like to see the anti-US leftists try and stab these guys like they did the US ambassador.

Defense Minister Han Min-koo (R) tours the headquarters of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises by South Korea and the United States at an air force base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on March 6, 2015. (Yonhap)

The start of the upcoming military exercises between the US and South Korea has been released:

The South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said that the two allies will conduct their annual joint military drills starting March 2.

Approximately ten-thousand South Korean and eight-thousand-600 U.S. troops will take part in this year’s Key Resolve exercise, which will run through March 13.

Of the involved U.S. forces, six-thousand-700 will be brought in from U.S. bases in other countries such as Japan for the computer-simulated command post exercise.

This year’s Key Resolve exercise will also involve forces from five other countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, France and the U.K.

In a separate exercise, South Korea and the U.S. will hold Foal Eagle from March 2 to April 24 with some 200-thousand South Korean and three-thousand-700 U.S. soldiers being mobilized.

The USS Fort Worth, a three-thousand-450-ton Freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS), will participate in the tactical field training exercise for the first time.Equipped with a helicopter, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and 21 missiles, the Fort Worth is capable of nearing the shoreline despite the shallow waters of the Asia-Pacific.  [KBS World]

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if the North Koreans want to respond with a provocation cycle or not.

Typical North Korean rhetoric and typical US-ROK response:

South Korea’s defense ministry said Thursday that annual joint spring drills with the U.S. will proceed as planned, despite North Korea’s call to cancel them in exchange for its pledge to suspend nuclear testing.

It was unclear how the decision to go ahead with the Foal Eagle field training and Key Resolve command post exercise would affect Seoul’s call for the two Koreas to hold their first summit since 2007.

“These are the annual exercises for the defense of the Republic of Korea,” a Ministry of National Defense spokesman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. “Therefore, we need to hold them, and North Korea will need to return quickly to meaningful conversation which could reach real progress in denuclearizing North Korea.”

Washington and Seoul tout the two exercises as defensive in nature, but they routinely draw condemnation and threats from the North.

Approximately 12,700 U.S. troops — about half from outside the peninsula — and more than 200,000 South Korean troops took part in last year’s exercises, as well as a number of U.S. naval and air assets from outside South Korea. Details for this year’s drills, which the MND said will begin in early March, have not been announced.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.