South Korea’s announcement that it would expand military exercises with the United States has once again fueled anger among its North Korean neighbors. Ruler Kim Jong Un promptly responded with countermeasures of “unprecedented” proportions should the two countries continue to work together.
North Korea has threatened an “unprecedented” response to a planned joint US-South Korean military exercise. If the two allies hold the exercise as planned, Pyongyang will respond with “strong and unprecedented countermeasures,” the North Korean foreign ministry said. The USA and South Korea want to practice their reaction to a nuclear weapons use by Pyongyang in the military simulation games next week. North Korea sharply condemns the regular military exercises in the two countries. The Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang described the maneuvers planned for this year as “preparations for a war of aggression”.
After tensions on the Korean peninsula have recently increased drastically, the USA and South Korea announced at the end of January that they would expand their joint maneuvers. The communist leadership under leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang has repeatedly threatened a military escalation in the region and recently announced that it would expand its own nuclear arsenal “exponentially”.
South Korea’s government under President Yoon Suk Yeol wants to convince the population in the face of threats from Pyongyang that Washington still feels obliged to stand by South Korea. The US is offering South Korea “a deterrent through the full extent of US defense resources,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said during his visit to Seoul in late January. This also means the use of nuclear weapons should South Korea be attacked with nuclear weapons.
