Over 100 American and South Korean warplanes will take part in large-scale, joint aerial war games. The military exercises come as North Korea warns of a realistic chance of nuclear war.
On Monday, 1,400 soldiers will begin participating in the 12-day war games. The military aircraft will involve advanced fighter jets, such as the F-35 and F-16. Chief of staff of the ROK Air Force Operations Command, Lee Beom-ki, said, “Through this exercise, (we) will be able to reaffirm the solid South Korea-U.S. alliance and further develop the combined operational capability to another level.”
Washington and Seoul have conducted a series of war games in recent weeks. In mid-March, the US flew a B-1B bomber over the Korean Peninsula. The show of force was quickly followed by the "Foal Eagle" war games. Foal Eagle was the largest live-fire military drill in South Korea in five years. In April, Washington conducted anti-submarine operations with Tokyo and Seoul. Shortly thereafter, the White House ordered a B-52 bomber to fly over the peninsula.
Pyongyang has reciprocated with weapons testing. North Korea claimed that they successfully launched an underwater drone capable of creating a "nuclear tsunami" and an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The US and South Korea typically assert that the exercises are defensive. However, North Korea views the war games as preparation for regime change in Pyongyang. A recent article in North Korean state media said, "The US and its followers should never forget the fact that their rival state has possessed the nuclear attack capability."
"The US has parroted that the military drills with South Korea are defensive," the KCNA editorial said. "But, they can never conceal with such veils as ‘defensive’ and ‘routine’ their aggressive colors as provocateurs and the fact that the current exercises are a deliberate military action prompted by their sinister scheme … to wreck peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula."
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Who are the damn BOZOS driving this thing??? We are on a collision course for potential nuclear war. And these a-holes are playing war games?…Tick, tock, tick, tock……..
To call the idiots running the US lunatics is offensive to those psychiatric wards and suffering from mental illness.
These people are nothing but pure evil.
OMG if you ever came to my house i would make some grilled-cheese sandwich and some green salads with 1000 island. or maybe blue cheese or maybe balsamic stuffs or something
Korea is the gift that keeps on giving to the MIC. Keep reminding Koreans how the US is capable of destroying towns and cities and everyone in them, and let’s not mention the Singapore Agreement which would end all this craziness.
good on you Bacon! and here is something else re S Korea =
S Korea is the bottom/end point of a peninsula and is almost entirely reliant on uncle sam. imagine if N Korea was not a bad guy and S Korea was the benefit of some fuel pipelines. wait, what?
War games. American as apple pie.
Oshkosh has a much bigger air show every year …..
I wonder if NoKo will treat us to some 1960’s missle tech and hit a ocean to scare us?
“”US, South Korea To Begin Large-Scale War Games This Week””
on the one hand we will insist that yalls curtail the use of fossil-fuels
but on the other hand we will drive all around this planet with our giant fossil-fuel machine
100 planes?
Doesn’t even sound like a decent air show but everyone “important” will find a camera to try to scare us to death.