The U.S. Defense Department says that a joint military exercise with South Korea scheduled for August aims to verify allied preparations ahead of the transfer of wartime operational control(OPCON) from the United States to South Korea.
Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said at a briefing on Thursday that the U.S. wants to take the necessary steps to ensure that the South Korean military has the capability to take on OPCON.
Speaking on the scale of the exercise, he said there have been slight changes to U.S. training operations and maneuvers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, he said that USFK commander General Robert Abrams decided to hold the drill, and that the U.S. has never stopped training or exercising.
The joint exercise will reportedly focus on the South Korean military's capacity to exercise wartime operational control and the U.S. ability to rapidly deploy reinforcements to the combat zone during an emergency on the Korean Peninsula.