South Korea and the United States on Wednesday kicked off their joint springtime war game which would mobilize the massive U.S. strategic assets, Yonhap news agency reported.
The Foal Eagle field training exercise is scheduled to last until late April, bringing USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and other strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.
A South Korean military official was quoted as saying that the largest-ever U.S. troops and strategic assets will be deployed for the drill.
In 2016, about 17,000 U.S. soldiers and the nuclear-powered John C. Stennis aircraft carrier participated in the drill.
Mobilized for this year's exercise would be the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and its attendant fleet that are accompanied by 24 F/A-18 fighter jets, 10 aerial tankers, 10 S-3A anti-submarine airplanes, 6 SH-3H anti-submarine helicopters, 4 EA-6B electronic warfare aircrafts and 4 E-2 airborne early warning aircrafts.
Other strategic assets to be brought to the drill would be F-35B stealth fighter jets that were deployed in the U.S. military in Japan in January.
Included in the strategic assets to be mobilized are B-1B strategic bomber and nuclear-capable B-52 long-range bomber, which are stationed in the Anderson air force base in Guam as well as F-22 stealth fighter jets in Japan.
The Key Resolve command post exercise is set to begin on April 13, according to Yonhap.
The U.S.-South Korea war games are forecast to cause strong backlash from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which had denounced it as a rehearsal for northward invasion.
