Defense & National Security — US, South Korea kick off major joint drills

Ellen Mitchell
·7 min read
1

The United States and South Korea have kicked off their largest joint military exercise in five years — drills that have been on pause since 2018 to try to sway North Korea toward nuclear disarmament.

We’ll share what we know about the major wargames and the events that led to their revival, plus more on former President Trump’s lawsuit responding to the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago and the death of the weapons expert who famously led an inspection team into Iraq in 2003 to search in vain for weapons of mass destruction

This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Ellen Mitchell. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

US, South Korea reboot military drills

The U.S. and South Korea on Monday kicked off Ulchi Freedom Shield, the largest joint military exercise held between the two countries in five years.

Limited details: Neither side has released details of the drills, but past versions of the exercise have involved tens of thousands of troops as well as aircraft, tanks and warships.

Limited details: Neither side has released details of the drills, but past versions of the exercise have involved tens of thousands of troops as well as aircraft, tanks and warships.

In a joint statement, the two militaries said the drills would “bolster combined readiness” and were a response to an “increased volume and scale of [North Korean] missile tests” in the past year.

Some background: Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of two major exercises that used to be held annually between South Korea and the United States, which bases about 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula.

  • In 2018, then-President Trump halted the drills after he sought to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to denuclearize his country at an in-person summit.

  • North Korea has often claimed that the U.S.-South Korea military exercises are a rehearsal for an invasion. 

  • The regular drills were either canceled or downsized to computer simulations to coax diplomatic concessions from North Korea, a mission that largely failed. 

A new plan: After talks between Trump and Kim collapsed in early 2019, the North redoubled its efforts to build its nuclear arsenal.

Then, when South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in May, he vowed to “normalize” the joint war games and “step up” the two sides’ military training to deter North Korea from hostile actions, including nuclear tests and missile launches.

Aggressive actions: The drills are likely to draw fresh ire from North Korea, which fired two cruise missiles last week after the U.S. and South Korea began preliminary training for the operation.

Pyongyang has regularly conducted missile tests in the past year, including more than 30 ballistic missile launches, and U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials have all warned that the North is seeking to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.

Read the full story here

Trump sues to stall FBI probe after Mar-a-Lago raid

Former President Trump is seeking to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing the classified materials seized from his home, asking the court to appoint a “special master” in the interim to help them review the evidence collected as they executed a search warrant.

Trump’s claims: In a 27-page motion that echoes much of the former president’s claims that the search was politically motivated, Trump’s attorneys ask for outside oversight to ensure the materials seized from his home do not include items they argue could be protected by executive privilege.

“It is unreasonable to allow the prosecutorial team to review them without meaningful safeguards,” Trump’s attorneys write.

“Short of returning the seized items to the movant, only a neutral review by a special master can protect the ‘great public interest’ in preserving ‘the confidentiality of conversations that take place in the president’s performance of his official duties.’”

Read that story here

Also from The Hill: 

David Kay dies at 82

David Kay, a weapons expert who famously led an inspection team into Iraq in 2003 to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and faced the ire of the Bush administration after he reported he did not find any nuclear arms or other WMDs, died on Aug. 13 at 82.

Kay died in Ocean View, Del., and the cause was cancer, according to an obituary written by his loved ones. The Washington Post first reported the news.

Kay’s credentials: Before he traveled to Iraq in 2003, Kay served as a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations (U.N.) Special Commission from 1991 to 1992 and as an agent with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Kay led multiple expeditions into Iraq after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991. He was tasked with determining if the Middle Eastern country was developing WMDs in violation of a U.N. agreement.

The weapons inspector found evidence of uranium enrichment processes, which are used to develop nuclear weapons, located a major assembly plant for the creation of nuclear arms and seized key documents about the Iraqi weapons program.

Best known for: But Kay is best known as the man who led a team to Iraq in 2003 to search for nuclear weapons and the development of WMDs — and finding no evidence of such activity.

The Bush administration had claimed ahead of its March 2003 invasion of Iraq that then-leader Saddam Hussein had violated the post-Gulf War U.N. agreement by developing nuclear weapons and other WMDs. In June 2003, Bush tasked the CIA with finding hard evidence of weapons in the country.

Given his experience, the CIA appointed Kay as the head of a 1,400-member task force known as the Iraq Survey Group. In January 2004, Kay submitted a report that determined Iraq did not have any such weapons in the country.

Fall out: His findings rankled the CIA and the White House and spurred congressional investigations into U.S. intelligence prior to the Bush administration’s invasion.

In a 2011 interview with NPR, shortly after the U.S. announced it would pull troops out of Iraq for the first time since the 2001 invasion, Kay reflected on his controversial role in the war.

“What I miss most are the friendships that were shattered by that; just had staked too much of their career on there being weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “And not only didn’t we find them, we found they didn’t exist prior to the war.”

Read more on Kay here

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW

  • NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will speak at the Second Summit of the Crimea Platform at 7:50 a.m.

  • The Intelligence National Security Alliance will host a virtual discussion with Defense Intelligence Agency Chief Information Officer Doug Cossa at 9 a.m.

  • The Atlantic Council will hold a virtual talk on “One Year Later: Reflecting on America’s Departure from Afghanistan,” with former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Navy Adm. James Stavridis and others at 11 a.m.

  • The Association of the U.S. Army will host a discussion on “Army Counter-Drone Efforts,” with Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office and director of fires in the office of the deputy Army chief of staff for operations, at 12 p.m.

  • The Center for Strategic and International Studies will hold a virtual book discussion on “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China,” at 4 p.m. 

WHAT WE’RE READING

That’s it for today! Check out The Hill’s Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow!

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