The United States and South Korea agreed on Tuesday to scale up their joint military exercises in a bid to counter North Korea’s military escalation.
In a joint statement, U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean defense minister Lee Jong-sup condemned North Korea’s continued provocations and vowed to take “a strong stance” against any further military action.
The two allies planned to hold the deterrence strategy committee tabletop exercise in February “to facilitate alliance discussions on deterrence and response options” to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat, according to the statement.
“We will further reinforce the alliance capability and posture and the combined defense through expanded execution of field training exercises and large-scale combined joint fires demonstration,” Lee said at a joint press conference….