World War 3 : U.S. and S. Korea conduct military drills getting ready for War

World War 3 : U.S. and S. Korea conduct military drills getting ready for War

Todays drills, involving 2,000 troops from the U.S. and South Korea, are intended to send a clear warning against North Korea aggression by showing U.S. and South Korean combat readiness, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Officials have described these as the biggest ever joint drills. They coincide with several days of joint naval exercises involving a nuclear-powered U.S. supercarrier and separate U.S., South Korean and Japanese naval rescue drills.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Jennifer Buschick, wouldn’t comment on the flag, deferring to the South Korean military.Live-fire drills by the allies are fairly routine, but using the North’s national flag as part of target practice is unusual – and will be seen as a provocation by Pyongyang, which has previously threatened war for what it called South Korean insults to the country’s national symbols and leadership..

Still, an immediate North Korean military retaliation is unlikely. The rockets didn’t hit the flag, which an analyst said might lead to a less angry North Korean response.But even a direct attack on the flag would probably only result in escalated North Korean threats because Pyongyang’s struggling economy prevents it from staging any attack that could cause a war, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University

A South Korean defense official, who declined to be named because of office policy, said the flag was meant to mark enemy territory during the drills, but he wouldn’t comment on Pyongyang’s possible reaction to use of the North Korean flag in the drills.

North Korea’s state media have condemned the ongoing drills as a precursor to an invasion, with the Korean Central News Agency warning that even a small clash could lead to a ‘full-scale regional nuclear war.’  Tension has been rising since a North Korean rocket launch in April that Seoul and Washington called a cover for a test of banned long-range missile technology.

North Korea said the launch, which happened during celebrations of the centennial of late national founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, was meant to send a satellite into orbit; the rocket broke apart shortly after liftoff.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the launch, and Pyongyang has since made a series of threats against Seoul’s conservative government and media, vowing to attack unless it got an apology for perceived insults against the country and its new, young leader, Kim Jong Un.

Thousands of civilians and officials – including South Korea’s prime minister – watched Friday’s drills.

The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, deployed Apache helicopters, A-10 Thunderbolts and armored vehicles for the drills, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Kim Jong Un took power as supreme leader of North Korea and its 1.2 million troops after his father, longtime ruler Kim Jong Il, died in December.  North Korea has condemned what it calls Seoul’s insensitivity to Kim Jong Il’s death and South Korean media criticism of important national events in the North.

In recent months, North Korea has ramped up harsh rhetoric against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who ended Seoul’s no-strings-attached aid to Pyongyang after he took office in 2008, with posters and slogans that repeatedly call Lee a ‘rat.’

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