In response to the emerging security threats stemming from China’s belligerence and rising regional influence, and North Korea’s relentless surge in nuclear weapons development programmes, the Defence chiefs of the US, Japan and South Korea held a trilateral meeting at the three-day Asia Security Summit in Singapore, also known as the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue from 31 May to 2 June 2024 and agreed to hold joint multi-domain exercises under the name “Freedom Edge”.

The latest agreement was reached on the sidelines of the Dialogue at a meeting between Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korea’s Defence chief Shin Won Sik. They released a joint statement announcing they will conduct a trination exercise dubbed “Freedom Edge” in late June. The three defence chiefs condemned North Korea’s recent tests of multiple ballistic missiles and the launch of what Pyongyang purports to be a military reconnaissance satellite. The three-day exercise which was concluded in late June, involved simultaneous drills in various domains, including surface, underwater, air defences, ballistic missile antisubmarine warfare and defensive cyber training.

This demonstrated the growing cooperation between the countries and the improved relationship between Japan and South Korea. The name of this new exercise, “Freedom Edge,” is a combination of two existing exercises: “Freedom Shield” (FS), an annual joint exercise conducted by South Korea and the United States simulating a North Korean invasion, and “Keen Edge,” a joint exercise conducted by the United States and Japan to respond to regional threats, including those from North Korea. The US replaced the USS Eisenhower with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which anchored in Busan, South Korea, on 22 June 2024 for the exercise. The drills also involved Tokyo’s guided-missile destroyer JS Atago, and Seoul’s KF-16 fighter jet.

The “Trilateral Tabletop Exercise” (TTX) was conducted to discuss effective deterrence and response measures for various threats on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region. The three Defence chiefs also decided to establish the “Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework” by the end of the year in order to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation, including high-level consultations, information sharing, trilateral exercises, and defence exchanges. The objective of institutionalising the trilateral security cooperation was to deter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and to achieve the complete denuclearization of North Korea in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

In a bilateral meeting on 1 June, the Defence chiefs of Japan and South Korea reached an agreement on measures to prevent the recurrence of the 2018 patrol aircraft dispute. That was considered a major obstacle to strengthening trilateral military cooperation between the three countries. The measures to prevent the recurrence of the dispute included the prioritization of 10 radio communication frequencies to ensure smooth communications between naval vessels and aircraft of both nations dur ing encounters at sea. Earlier, the two Koreas had reached the “September 19th Military Agreement”, which banned all hostile acts on the ground, sea and air between the two. But North Korea continued to violate the agreement by not only expanding its nuclear capabilities but indulged in illegal arms trade, constant threats of sending balloons filled with waste and unidentified objects over the DMZ, and GPS disruptions.

As a result, it pushed South Korea to go for the combined trilateral military exercises with a view to ensuring stability and peace in East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region. It may be recalled that in December 2023, the three countries had fully activated a system to share real-time information on North Korean missile launches. In the agreement reached at Singapore, the three Defence chiefs pledged to enhance cooperation by further optimising the data-sharing mechanism by the end of 2024 to ensure the ability to deter and counter provocations effectively. The last time the three Defence chiefs had met in person was in June 2023. In April, the three countries held a two-day naval exercise involving the USS Theodore Roosevelt in efforts to improve their joint operability against North Korea’s evolving threats.

The reaction by North Korea to the exercise was swift and harsh. Condemning the drills, it labelled the trilateral military exercise as the “Asian version of NATO”. North Korea denounced the drills and warned of “fatal consequences”. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry released a statement denouncing “provocative military muscle-flexing” against North Korea. Pyongyang has always objected to similar combined exercises, dubbing them as rehearsals for an invasion. In recent times, the two Koreas have been caught in a tit-for-tat balloon campaign. Pyongyang sent trashfilled balloons southwards in retaliation to similar missives northwards from the South carrying pro-Seoul propaganda. The situation is thus volatile.

(The writer is a former Senior Fellow at Pradhanmantri Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.)