February 23, 2026
SEOUL – South Korean and United States military authorities are divided over the details of their annual springtime joint exercises, sources said Sunday, delaying a planned joint announcement of the schedule.
The allies had planned to jointly unveil details of the Freedom Shield exercise — scheduled for March 9-19 — on Wednesday, but postponed the announcement as consultations continued over the scope of outdoor field training, according to military officials.
An official from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the two sides are currently “coordinating on differences regarding the scale and content of field maneuver exercises.”
Spokespersons from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US-led Combined Forces Command, which also represents the United Nations Command, usually hold a press briefing to announce the training period and field maneuver plans in advance.
According to reports, South Korea’s military had initially planned to spread out outdoor field maneuvers throughout the year. Customarily, the allies’ field exercises are concentrated during the Freedom Shield exercise.
US officials, however, expressed concerns about scaling back field drills, noting that augmentation troops and equipment assigned to the exercise have already arrived in South Korea.
Despite the differences, officials said the overall exercise schedule would remain unchanged, with an official announcement expected in late February or early March.
The delay came about two weeks after President Lee Jae Myung called on the country’s top security officials to consider measures that could ease inter-Korean tensions, including those regarding joint military activities.
Following North Korea’s statement calling for preventive measures after a drone flight over Pyongyang — an issue that escalated tensions under the previous Yoon Suk Yeol administration — Lee convened a senior security meeting on Feb. 13 and reportedly instructed officials to examine additional steps, including possible adjustments to allied exercises.
While the allies emphasize that the drills are defensive in nature, North Korea has long condemned the exercises as “rehearsals for invasion,” pointing to large-scale troop movements associated with field training.
For similar reasons, adjustments were made during last August’s combined exercise — the first held after Lee took office in June — when roughly half of about 40 planned field training events were conducted during the main exercise period, with the remainder carried out later in the year.
The episode comes amid broader signs of friction between Seoul and Washington.
On Feb. 19, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Jin Young-seung protested to US Forces Korea Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson after US fighter jets conducted training over the West Sea without prior coordination with South Korean authorities.
This year’s exercise is expected to carry added significance as the allies plan to assess conditions related to the transfer of wartime operational control, or OPCON, to South Korea — authority that has remained under US command since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Freedom Shield is a command post exercise simulating wartime operations under a scenario of a full-scale North Korean invasion. The allies conduct large-scale combined exercises twice annually, typically in March and August.