U.S., South Korea plan military exercises - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

U.S., South Korea plan military exercises

Sending a “clear message of deterrence to North Korea,” the U.S. and South Korea will cap an upcoming official visit with soon-to-be approved plans for a series of military exercises in nearby waters, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The naval and air exercises, planned for the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, have yet to be approved by the two countries, and details are not yet available, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters.

“But they do involve a wide range of assets and are expected to be initiated in the near future,” he said.

Despite the concerns that such training could raise in North Korea and its top ally, China, Morrell said, “This is a matter of our ability to exercise in the open seas, in international waters. Those determinations are made by us, and us alone — where we exercise, when we exercise, with whom and how, using what assets, and so forth.”

The exercises will “augment already planned bilateral exercises,” Morrell said. All are “defensive in nature, but will send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea and demonstrate our steadfast commitment to the defense of South Korea.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with their South Korean counterparts July 21 to address the “full range of security and alliance issues,” including further refinement of the now-delayed plan to transfer wartime operational control of the two nations’ forces as well as military readiness and deterrence.

The trip, meetings and exercise plans, Morrell said, are a clear signal that the alliance between the U.S. and South Korea “has never been stronger.”

The transfer of wartime operational control was scheduled for 2012 but will now take place 3½ years later, in the fall of 2015.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said June 26 in Toronto at the start of the G-20 economic summit talks that he had formally requested the delay in light of “the evolving security environment of the region” — an obvious reference to North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean navy ship on March 26.

Last fall, Gates said he was pleased with the progress being made on that transfer and expressed “complete confidence” that the transfer would take place as scheduled in April 2012.

Morrell said nothing changed in the interim.

“I think he’s still fundamentally pleased with the development of the Korean military, particularly when it comes not just to their fighting ability but to their warfighting management capabilities as well,” Morrell said. “And that’s evidenced by the fact that he believes, fundamentally, that they are in a position, or will be in a position, to assume those responsibilities on the original time schedule, the 2012 time schedule.”

But Lee and President Obama have agreed that “it is worth adjusting that timeline, pushing it three years to the right … so that we can work on other issues as well,” Morrell said.

Those issues, he said, include force management, defense reform, ground operations command and the movement of bases.

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