By Jun Ji-hye
South Korea and the United States are planning to hold their annual joint military drills that will feature more advanced hardware than previously deployed, according to military officials Thursday.
The military said that the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises will kick off on March 7 and will run until April 30.
The number of troops and war planes participating in the drills this time will increase by some 5,750 and 45, respectively.
“The USS John C. Stennis Strike Group will also attend the drills,” said a Ministry of National Defense official on condition of anonymity, adding that the advanced and the largest-ever drills will take place this year to show the allies’ ability to punish the North and deter additional provocations from the regime.
The Stennis is the seventh Nimitz-class nuclear-powered super carrier in the U.S. Navy, which was commissioned in 1995, named after Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi. It is capable of carrying some 90 fighter jets including F-18s, and 6,500 officers and crew.
Last year, some 12,000 American troops and some 210,000 South Korean soldiers participated in the drills.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that allies are also planning to additionally dispatch strategic assets of the U.S. forces, which will include B-52 and B-2 bombers, F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and a nuclear-powered submarine. The U.S. Air Force sent a B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber to South Korea last month in the wake of the North’s Jan. 6 nuclear test.
The nuclear-powered submarine USS North Carolina will arrive to South Korea next week, according to some military reports.
Ministry Spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said, “No decision has been made.”
The measure is part of the allies’ armed protests against Pyongyang’s Feb. 7 launch of a long-range rocket and the Jan. 6 nuclear test.
During this year’s drills, the allies will apply their new joint wartime operational plan, dubbed “Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5015,” for the first time since the two sides signed it in June of last year to replace the OPLAN 5027.
The OPLAN 5015 reportedly includes the concept of preemptive strikes against the North’s key facilities in the event of a necessary contingency, while the OPLAN 5027 was more about how to defend the South.
As usual, North Korea is expected to react against the joint drills, which will ratchet up military tension on the Korean Peninsula. Last year, the repressive state threatened “merciless” retaliation against “the source of evils.”
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