U.S., South Korea kick off joint military exercise amid outcry from North Korea

SEOUL, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- The United States and South Korea kicked off a major joint military exercise on Monday meant to deter growing threats from North Korea , which denounced the drills as "offensive and provocative."

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise runs until Aug. 29 and includes live field maneuvers, computer simulation-based command post exercises and related civil defense drills.

The annual exercise will "reflect realistic threats across all domains such as Democratic People's Republic of Korea's increasing missile threats, GPS jamming, cyber-attacks, and lessons learned from recent armed conflict," both militaries said last week .

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Pyongyang frequently condemns the allies' joint drills as preparation for an invasion and maintains that its own nuclear and missile programs are a necessary form of deterrence.

On Sunday, the North's Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling Ulchi Freedom Shield "the most offensive and provocative war drills for aggression in the world."

"We will continue to make crucial efforts to build up strong defense capabilities for creditably defending our state sovereignty, security, interests and territorial integrity and change the security environment of the Korean peninsula and the region in our favor," the statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said.

The United States and South Korea describe their joint drills, which have continued to expand and evolve in response to North Korean threats, as defensive in nature. This year's Ulchi Freedom Shield will include 48 field-training exercises including amphibious landing and live-fire drills -- up from 38 in 2023.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday called for boosting military readiness against North Korea, which he described as the most "reckless and irrational country" in the world.

"As we have seen from the war in Ukraine and the conflicts in the Middle East, war can happen at any time," he said during a Cabinet meeting. "The nature of war has also changed from the past. It is being conducted in a hybrid form that combines regular, irregular and cyber warfare, as well as public opinion and psychological warfare using fake news."

Last week, Yoon outlined a vision for unification with North Korea and offered to open a working group for dialogue.

The North has not responded to the plan, South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said Monday.

"There has been no official response from North Korea," ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam said during a press briefing. "We will be watching North Korea's reaction without making any predictions."

Pyongyang's response to Ulchi Freedom Shield has been relatively muted so far, Koo added.

"North Korea's reaction to the Ulchi drills is not as strong and hard-line as in previous years," he said. "But today is the first day of the exercise, so we will see how it goes."

Last year, North Korea conducted a strategic cruise missile test and launched short-range ballistic missiles simulating a "scorched earth" nuclear attack on the South during the exercise.

Tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula, with back-and-forth Cold War-style psychological warfare emerging along border areas in recent months.

North Korea has sent thousands of balloons carrying scrap paper, shredded clothing and manure into the South since early June, including one that spilled trash on Yoon's presidential compound. Seoul, meanwhile, has resumed propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts near the DMZ, blasting K-pop songs and South Korean news and information across the border.