September 15, 2025
SEOUL – South Korea will launch two simultaneous military exercises on Monday: Freedom Edge, a trilateral outdoor multi-domain drill with the US and Japan, and Iron Mace, a nuclear-attack response planning tabletop exercise with the US.
North Korea denounced the defensive exercises — which aim to enhance interoperability and sharpen readiness against North Korea’s mounting missile and nuclear threats — with concurrent press statements from two high-profile officials.
Both exercises will be held for the first time since the launch of the Lee Jae Myung administration and the second Trump administration.
The five-day drill, Freedom Edge 25, is the premier multi-domain exercise held between South Korea, the US and Japan. It runs through Friday in international waters southeast of Jeju Island, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Freedom Edge aims to “respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and to safeguard peace and stability in the region,” according to the JCS.
The three countries “will use Freedom Edge to strengthen operational capabilities across multiple domains — maritime, air, cyber and more — and maintain a robust and stable trilateral cooperation framework by improving interoperability,” the JCS added.
This third iteration of Freedom Edge follows those held in June and November 2024, as a follow-up measure to agreements reached between the three countries’ leaders at the Camp David summit in August 2023
The allies will also hold Iron Mace, a Monday-to-Friday tabletop exercise focused on Conventional-Nuclear Integration, or CNI. This is designed to rehearse joint planning procedures for deploying US nuclear-capable strategic assets in coordination with South Korea’s advanced conventional forces.
The exercise also aims to strengthen allied response options and reinforce deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
Iron Mace will take place at Camp Humphreys, the base for US Forces Korea, in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Participants will include the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Strategic Commands from both countries. This tabletop exercise follows the “Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula,” which the two countries agreed to in July 2024.
The allies, mindful of potential backlash from North Korea, decided not to publicly announce this round of training — a contrast to previous Iron Mace tabletop exercises in August 2024 and April, which concluded with joint press releases.
However, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, which primarily targets global audiences, on Sunday released two press statements denouncing Freedom Edge and Iron Mace, without publishing them in the Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper that mainly caters to domestic readers.
Pak Jong-chon, vice chair of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, warned in a Korean-language statement: “I stress that if the hostile forces persist in their muscle-flexing, our counteraction will also be expressed in a clearer and more intensified way.”
In another statement, Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said, “I remind them that the reckless show of strength being demonstrated in action by the US, Japan and the ROK in the wrong place — that is, around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — will clearly bring bad results to themselves.”
ROK is the acronym for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea, while the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.
Observers noted the significance of the rare high-profile coordinated statements.
“Since Iron Mace and Freedom Edge were scheduled exercises, North Korea has been accumulating a series of justifications for its future moves through Kim Jong-un’s field guidance of tactical and strategic nuclear forces in August and September surrounding Victory Day, his field guidance of conventional weapons, and warning statements,” said Hong Min, a senior researcher at South Korea’s government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.
North Korean state media reported Saturday that Kim Jong-un visited the Armoured Defensive Weapons Institute and the Electronic Weapons Institute under the Academy of Defence Sciences on Thursday and Friday, and inspected Training Base No. 38 in the Pyongyang area on Friday, where he oversaw a sniper shooting contest.
At the Electronic Weapons Institute, Kim notably said that “the Ninth Party Congress will present the policy of simultaneously developing nuclear forces and conventional armed forces,” according to the report.
“In sum, it is highly likely that North Korea is building legitimacy to push ahead with nuclear weapons advancement, conventional force modernization and a ‘North Korean-style nuclear-conventional integration,’ as well as major weapons tests between September and December to that end,” Hong added.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com
