August 23, 2022
SEOUL – South Korea on Monday concurrently started conducting a serious mixed navy train with the USA and civil protection drills based mostly on real-world eventualities to organize for full-scale warfare on the peninsula and native provocations by North Korea.
The 2-week Ulchi Freedom Protect train between South Korea and the US is scheduled to be held between Aug. 22 and Sept. 1, in response to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Employees.
The primary session of Ulchi Freedom Protect goals to simulate getting into right into a state of warfare, repelling North Korean assaults and defending the Seoul metropolitan space. The second half seeks to observe counteroffensive operations, which assault the enemy’s weak factors such because the aspect and rear of essential forces, to safe the protection of the capital.
Subject coaching workout routines
Ulchi Freedom Protect notably consists of varied kinds of subject coaching workout routines that had been scaled down and performed sporadically all year long.
South Korea and the US had staged common mixed navy workout routines largely based mostly on a pc simulation within the aftermath of then-US President Donald Trump’s dedication to suspending large-scale mixed navy workout routines on the Singapore summit in June 2018.
The South Korean and US forces plan to conduct 13 kinds of tactical-level and sensible subject coaching workout routines, or FTXs, throughout Ulchi Freedom Protect to reinforce interoperability. The FTXs embody brigade-level coaching involving a high-tech fight simulation system and battalion-level coaching for weapons of mass destruction elimination operations.
The South Korean and US militaries search to reinforce mixed operational capabilities and maximize the outcomes of the FTXs by reinforcing the linkage between annual large-scale mixed workout routines and FTXs.
The mixed navy workout routines are notably staged based mostly on real-world eventualities, which mirror altering patterns of warfare which have emerged in the course of the warfare in Ukraine corresponding to drone assaults and cyberwarfare.
South Korea and the US additionally plan to conduct an evaluation of the South Korean navy’s Full Operational Functionality in the course of the Ulchi Freedom Protect train. The FOC evaluation is the second a part of the three-phase system required to switch wartime operational management to South Korea.
Incorporating civil protection drills
The Ulchi Freedom Protect mixed train incorporates South Korea’s government-level Ulchi civil protection drills, which had been individually staged with a concentrate on nonmilitary crises corresponding to disasters.
This yr’s Ulchi drills are set to be performed from Monday to Thursday with the participation of round 4,000 authorities and civil organizations and 480,000 personnel.
Talking at a Cupboard assembly, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol mentioned Monday that the federal government has revived large-scale Ulchi drills that had been scaled again for the final 5 years.
Yoon underscored that the Ulchi civil protection drills contain real-life eventualities and intensive sensible subject coaching, being attentive to the significance of its interconnectivity with Ulchi Freedom Protect.
“Ulchi drills would function a place to begin for the federal government to newly construct emergency preparedness similar to adjustments in warfare patterns,” Yoon mentioned.
“Solely workout routines which are similar to an precise battle can firmly defend the lives of our folks and the safety of our nation. Our watertight safety posture should function the idea to take care of peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
Troopers simulate an operation to rescue hostages from terrorists as they participate in an anti-terror drill at a cruise terminal within the port metropolis of Incheon, west of Seoul, on Aug. 22, 2022. (Yonhap)
Actual-world eventualities
Yoon emphasised that South Korea needs to be ready for real-life eventualities corresponding to “cyberattacks on nationwide key data and communication applied sciences amenities.”
Different eventualities embody assaults on “core industrial infrastructure corresponding to ports, airports and nuclear energy crops, high-tech industrial amenities together with semiconductors and main uncooked materials provide chains.”
Yoon additionally identified that South Korea ought to prepare for a state of affairs through which an enemy “makes an attempt to deal a blow to and neutralize South Korea’s warfighting capabilities.”
Throughout the Ulchi drills, South Korea additionally practices intergovernmental procedures on emergency reconstruction and restoration to organize for North Korea’s assaults on electrical, telecommunications and water infrastructure and different amenities, South Korea’s Ministry of the Inside and Security mentioned Sunday. The eventualities are coated in mild of “threats posed by North Korea’s latest missile launches and sample of terrorism.”
Coaching to fight cyberterrorism and the jamming of GPS and emergency evacuation coaching in case of artillery assaults are additionally staged in the course of the Ulchi drills.
The JCS additionally underscored that this yr’s integration of the civil protection drills and mixed navy train will allow South Korea to “grasp procedures to handle crises on the government-level and to help mixed operations within the South Korea-US mixed protection system.”
South Korea goals to “improve nationwide capabilities to conduct all-out warfare in preparation for North Korea’s native provocations and full-scale warfare” by concurrently conducting the mixed navy train and civil protection drills.
N. Korea’s response
North Korea has denounced the mixed navy workout routines as a “rehearsal for a warfare of invasion towards the nation” and used the workout routines as a pretext to intensify tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korean Protection Minister Lee Jong-sup earlier this month repeatedly warned of the potential of “North Korea making provocations” on the event of the navy workout routines.
North Korea fired two suspected cruise missiles from South Pyongan Province towards the western sea on Aug. 11, a day after South Korea and the US started four-day preliminary navy drills within the run-up to Ulchi Freedom Protect.
North Korea’s Uriminzokkiri, an external-oriented propaganda outlet, underscored that “peace and warfare frenzy can by no means coexist” in a commentary issued Sunday, lashing out on the Yoon authorities’s latest transfer to reinforce the alliance’s readiness towards North Korean threats.
“Nobody can deny that the rattling of the US and its puppet South Korea that they harbor no hostility in direction of us is nothing greater than puns filled with lies and hypocrisy,” the commentary mentioned.
