- President Donald Trump ordered the curtailment of U.S.-South Korean military exercises, reportedly catching Seoul off guard, as part of an effort to reduce hostility toward North Korea.
- Some experts warn the decision could weaken military readiness and confidence in U.S. security commitments.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – AUGUST 7: (L to R) Col. Lee Sung-jun, public affairs director of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Col. Ryan Donald, public affairs director of the United Nations Command (UNC), Combined Forces Command (CFC), and United States Forces Korea (USFK) bump fists during the press briefing for the Ulchi Freedom Shield 2025 exercise at the Defense Ministry on August 07, 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. The 11-day Freedom Shield is part of an annual combined training with troops from South Korea and the United States. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Chung Sung-jun | Getty Images News | Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s move to sharply curtail U.S.-South Korean military exercises will not only affect they countries’ combat readiness, but also undermine the credibility of American commitments to its alliances
Lieutenant General Chun In-Bum, former commander of South Korea’s Special Warfare Command, was blunt: “scaling back joint exercises like Ulchi Freedom Shield while North Korean troops gain combat experience in Ukraine creates a dangerous operational disconnect.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that Pyongyang was dispatching up to another 50,000 troops to aid Moscow, pointing to a gradual increase in North Korean troops deployed against Kyiv
The joint Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise began on Aug. 17 will now end on Friday, ahead of the original schedule through Aug. 27
That revision comes after Trump ordered Defence Secetary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” joint drills with Seoul so as to not “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, a move that is said to have caught Seoul off guard
South Korean and US soldiers pose for photos after their joint live fire exercise at a military training field in Pocheon on March 14, 2024 as part of the annual Freedom Shield joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / POOL / AFP) (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images
Chun said Pyongyang’s troops were refining modern tactics, including drone warfare, electronic warfare, and artillery integration, under actual battle conditions, and the U.S.- South Korea alliance relies on major exercises to stress test its systems and adapt to these evolving threats
“Restricting readiness testing for political gestures weakens joint counter-measures and undermines deterrence precisely as the adversary’s battlefield proficiency expands,” he said
U.S. official, however, told Reuters that scaled-back drills would still preserve essential readiness and training objectives, with no degradation to American training goals
Credibility in question
While the direct impact would be a reduction in combat readiness in the alliance’s forces, the move by Trump will also start to raise questions about the credibility of Washington’s commitment to alliances, experts said
[The move] significantly undermines the credibility of the U.S. security commitment at a time when confidence in that commitment is already near one of its lowest points in recent history.
Lami Kim
Korea Chair in Advanced Technologies, National Security and Defence, IISS
This “significantly undermines the credibility of the U.S. security commitment at a time when confidence in that commitment is already near one of its lowest points in recent history,” said Lami Kim, Korea Chair in Advanced Technologies, National Security and Defence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Trump hardened his stance, saying the joint exercises were “very insulting to somebody that, frankly, has been, during my term at least, very well-behaved.”
This is not the first time that Trump has suspended joint exercises in an effort to improve relations with North Korea. In his first term, the U.S. president hadsuspended exercises while carrying out negotiations with Pyongyang
YEOJU-GUN, SOUTH KOREA – AUGUST 27: U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division and South Korean soldiers participate in a river crossing exercise as part of the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise on August 27, 2025 in Yeoju-gun, South Korea. The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is a regular joint military exercise between U.S. and South Korean troops to prepare for potential emergencies on the Korean Peninsula. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Chung Sung-jun | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Kim’s view is shared by Henry Haggard, a former U.S. diplomat in Seoul. Haggard said the move could cause concern among allies about the predictability and reliability of the U.S. alliance guarantee
“This announced reduction appears to be a bad overall strategic move given Ukraine, Iran … some allies, Korea among them, are struggling to understand U.S. positions vis a vis Russia, North Korea and even China,” Haggard said
However, there are some experts that see the cut in military drills as a positive gesture, suggesting that if the joint exercises are escalating tensions, then reducing them should lessen the chance of a conflict
Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, told CNBC that for both the United States and South Korea, reducing the number of military exercises could create a more stable and less hostile military environment
She said after the United States conducts military exercises in Asia, “countries like China or North Korea respond accordingly, increasing their military activity in the region, conducting their own exercises, or testing new weapons and missiles.”
The cut in drills drew no immediate concession from Pyongyang, with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying Thursday that “If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get [their] desired answer.” She is also director of the central committee of North Korea’s ruling party
She added that North Korea paid more attention to the fact that the drills are already staged, not to the reduction of the drills. “We are correctly seeing through the fact that this is an obvious expression of open hostility.”
