seoul south korea the united states and south korea will begin their biggest combined military training in years next week in the face of an increasingly aggressive north korea which has been ramping up weapons tests and threats of nuclear conflict against seoul and washington the souths military said tuesdaythe allies summertime drills which will take place from aug 22 to sept 1 in south korea under the name of ulchi freedom shield will include field exercises involving aircraft warships tanks and potentially tens of thousands of troopsthe drills underscore washington and seouls commitment to restore largescale training after they canceled some of their regular drills and downsized others to computer simulations in recent years to create space for diplomacy with pyongyang and because of covid19 concernsthe us department of defense also said the us south korean and japanese navies took part in missile warning and ballistic missile search and tracking exercises off the coast of hawaii from aug 8 to 14 which it said was aimed at furthering trilateral cooperation in face of north korean challengeswhile the united states and south korea describe their exercises as defensive ulchi freedom shield will almost surely draw an angry reaction from north korea which describes all allied trainings as invasion rehearsals and has used them to justify its nuclear weapons and missiles developmentbefore they were shelved or downsized the us and south korea held major joint exercises every spring and summer in south korea the spring ones had been highlighted by livefire drills involving a broad range of land air and sea assets and usually involved around 10000 american and 200000 korean troopstens of thousands of allied troops had participated in the summertime drills which had mainly consisted of computer simulations to hone joint decision making and planning although south koreas military has emphasized the revival of largescale field training this timeofficials at seouls defense ministry and its joint chiefs of staff did not comment on the number of us and south korean troops that would be participating in ulchi freedom guardian shieldthe biggest meaning of ulchi freedom shield is that it normalizes the south koreaus combined exercises and field training contributing to the rebuilding of the south koreaus alliance and the combined defense posture moon hongsik a defense ministry spokesperson said during a briefingsome experts say north korea may use the drills as an excuse to stir up tensionsthe north has already warned of a deadly retaliation against south korea over its covid19 outbreak it dubiously claims was caused by antipyongyang propaganda leaflets and other objects flown across the border by balloons launched by southern activists there are concerns that the north korean threat issued last week by the powerful sister of leader kim jong un portends a provocation which may include a nuclear or major missile test or even border skirmishesin an interview with associated press television last month choe jin deputy director of a think tank run by pyongyangs foreign ministry said the united states and south korea would