The Department of Press and Information of the DPRK Foreign Ministry on March 9 issued the following press statement “US random exercise of strength will result in aggravated security crisis”:

The roaring sound of war machinery, full of hostility and mistrust, is being heard beyond the southern border of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The US is going to stage the large-scale joint military exercises Freedom Shield 2025, an aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal, in collusion with the ROK military gangsters to heat up the atmosphere of cease-fire in the region.

Despite the DPRK’s repeated warning, the US and the ROK are persistent in their plan for the large-scale joint military exercises. This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, in which an accidental single shot may spark off a physical conflict between both sides, to the extreme point.

What should not be overlooked is that the enemies are scheming to apply the “OPLAN 2022,” aimed at a “preemptive attack” on the nuclear weapons facilities of the DPRK, during the upcoming exercises under the “guidelines for nuclear deterrence and nuclear operations” cooked up and published in July 2024.

Such military hysteria of the US, which unfailingly comes irrespective of the policy ambiguity that inevitably follows regime change, clearly proves the instinctive anti-DPRK practice of the US engrossed in sanctions, pressure and confrontation, being seized by its inveterate hostility toward the DPRK.

Lurking behind the above-said war exercises, traditionally staged by the US and the ROK, is the persistent and unchangeable ambition of aggression pursued by the US and the puppet ROK, which, as the code name of the exercises tells, seek to propagate the American values and the liberal democracy of Yankees into the inviolable territory of a sovereign state and finally to overthrow the DPRK government and its social system.

The long history of the DPRK-US political and military confrontation is stark enough to make one intuitively understand the origin of deep-rooted conflict and the gravity of the situation. Such a structure has been closer to the threshold of explosion due to the frantic US war game directly aiming at the DPRK, and it is taking on greater riskiness.

Then, should we regard various military drills staged by the US at any time under the unctuous signboards of annual and defensive ones as a temerarious muscle-flexing of those frightened at the DPRK’s strong defence capability growing in direct proportion to the US nuclear threat or as a means for pacifying its stooge at security unrest?

The US and the ROK decided to sharply increase the number of field mobile drills by units of brigade level and above than last year, simultaneously conduct the second-stage joint command and control drill of the US Space Force troops in the ROK aimed at verifying the capability of space operation assistance in the region in case of contingency on the Korean peninsula and employ the generative artificial intelligence on an experimental basis during the joint military exercises. All the facts go to clearly show the multi-domain and all-round offensive nature of Freedom Shield.

Obviously, the US intends to get the situation in the Korean peninsula and the region out of control by ceaselessly staging in a gradual and wavelike way Freedom Shield and other large-scale war drills and thus perpetuate the vicious cycle of provocation and tension.

It is seeking an anachronistic attempt to gain the advantage of strength in the Asia-Pacific region and reshape the geopolitical landscape by expanding the military alliance with its stooges into a comprehensive strategic alliance under the pretext of “threats” from someone.

Under this confrontation- and hegemony-oriented line of the US, strategic means including the nuclear submarine Alexandria , B-1B strategic bombers and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Carl Vinson are constantly deployed in the Korean peninsula and reckless aerial espionages and all kinds of joint military exercises are being staged one after another. Such acts are stoking the legitimate security concerns of not only the DPRK but also regional countries.

In the wake of the above-said exercises, various anti-DPRK war drills including the one jointly sponsored by the US-ROK Allied Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the ROK are to be conducted more than 110 times, a 9.7 percent increase as compared with last year. This fact indicates that the military confrontation hysteria of enemy countries will continue as a chronic symptom, not as a single fit.

The increase in the visibility of US strategic means deployed on the Korean peninsula and the US-led bilateral and multilateral rehearsals bearing every emblem of actual war prove more evidently that the DPRK should be the most thoroughgoing and more overwhelming in deterring the enemies’ various anti-DPRK nuclear war threats.

The US, which is overusing the toughest high-handed power politics in different parts of the world, has gradually stepped up the actual maneuvers in the Korean peninsula and the region, hyping the "demonstration of alliance". They may help to calm down the alienation of its stooges, but it is necessary to mention that they will never act as "plus" to the promotion of security of the US and its allies.

The reckless action and unreasonable choice of the US seeking to "solemnly" play the first movement of a war symphony through the largest-ever military provocation this year will act as "minus" to the US security.

The DPRK has already expressed its will to continue to exercise its strategic deterrence to cope with the US continued demonstration of military strength.

The US should be mindful that its habitual hostile policy toward the DPRK, openly denying the DPRK’s legitimate existence and victorious advance, will only add justification to the principle of toughest anti-US counteraction, declared by the DPRK, and face the undesirable consequences of escalated security threat.

The trite “succession” to the malicious anti-DPRK practice will inevitably lead to a serious strategic misjudgment. If the ability to judge it is lack, the prospect of the US will be gloomy.

The DPRK will redouble its responsible efforts to keep lasting peace in the Korean peninsula and the region through the trustworthy strength accompanied by the radical growth of the nuclear force.

KCNA