U.S. and Japan jointly exercise in the East Sea on the 12th [미 7함대 제공]
The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, conducted a joint exercise with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) on the high seas of the East Sea.
The US 7th Fleet posted pictures of training on Facebook and Twitter today, and it is interpreted that it sent a warning message to North Korea, which has been caught on the trend of preparations for a nuclear test.
According to the 7th Fleet Command, the USS Lincoln, the missile cruiser Mobile Bay and the Aegis destroyer Spruance, which are members of the carrier escort group, conducted a joint exercise yesterday together with the guided missile destroyers Gongo and Inazuma belonging to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The two navies formed a formation on the high seas of the East Sea, and the Lincoln F-35C stealth fighter aircraft and the E-2D Hawkeye air control plane also scrambled and flew in formation with Self-Defense Force fighters over the high seas of the East Sea.
“The operation of the naval forces of both countries is to reaffirm to our allies and partners the United States’ commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the 7th Fleet said in a statement.
‘Free and open Indo-Pacific’ is a phrase the US mainly uses to express its strategy to contain the public, but this exercise is also evaluated as having a large nature of armed protests against North Korea in addition to China’s containment.
It is interpreted as a warning given that the possibility of a strategic provocation such as a nuclear test by North Korea was raised on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birthday on the 15th and the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army on the 25th.
It is the first time in four years and five months since November 2017 that a US carrier has entered the East Sea.
In November 2017, when North Korea’s nuclear test and intercontinental ballistic missile-class test-firing followed one after another, the United States entered the East Sea with three nuclear carriers, the Ronald Reagan, Theodore Roosevelt, and Nimitz, and conducted joint exercises with the South Korean navy. There is a bar.
The US carrier strike team is said to be planning to stay in the high seas of the East Sea for about five days.
The Lincoln’s entry into the high seas of the East Sea coincided with the start of the crisis management staff training, which is the pre-training of the ROK-US joint exercise in the first half of the year.
The ROK and the US will conduct staff training from the 12th to the 15th, and the combined command post training will be held on the 18th and 28th, the main exercise of the combined exercise.
Initially, after the Lincoln Nuclear Carrier Strike Team entered the East Sea, the United States hoped for a trilateral joint maritime exercise with South Korea, the United States, and Japan, but the trilateral exercise did not take place due to the disapproval of the South Korean side.
There was also talk about the possibility of a joint exercise between the South Korean navy and the US carrier strike group, but it is said that the conclusion was not to do it.