The Department of Press and Information of the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued on March 9 the following press statement entitled "US’ excessive exercise of strength will result in severer security crisis":

The roaring sound of war machinery, full of hostility and mistrust, is coming from the area over 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 the ceasefire region.

Despite of the DPRK's repeated warning, the US and the ROK are dead set on staging the large-scale joint military exercises. This is a dangerous provocative act of driving the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, where a single accidental gun report may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides, beyond the extreme limit.

What cannot 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 current exercises under the "guidelines on nuclear deterrence and nuclear operations" cooked up and published in July 2024.

Such military hysteria of the US, which is surely going on irrespective of the policy ambiguity inevitably witnessed with the regime change, shows without filtration the instinctive anti-DPRK practice of the US engrossed in sanctions, pressure and confrontation, being seized by inveterate hostility toward our state.

Lurking behind the above-said war exercises, traditionally staged by the US and the ROK, is the persistent and unchangeable ambition for aggression of the US, which seeks to propagate the American-style values and the Yankee-style liberal democracy into the inviolable territory of our sovereign state and finally to bring about the collapse of our government and its system overthrow as is seen through the name of the operation "Freedom Shield", and of the ROK following the US.

For its long history alone, the DPRK-US political and military confrontation structure makes one intuitively understand the origin of deep-rooted conflict and the gravity of situation. The structure has got closer to the threshold of explosion due to the frantic US war sabre-rattling directly aimed at our state, and its aspect of confrontation is developing into a more dangerous phase.

Then, should we regard various military drills staged by the US at any time under such specious signboards as annual and defensive as a temerarious muscle-flexing of those frightened by the DPRK's strong defence capability growing in direct proportion to the US nuclear threat or as a comfort 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 more than last year, simultaneously conduct the second-stage joint command and control drill of the US Space Force stationed 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 push the situation in the Korean peninsula and the region to an uncontrollable phase by staging ceaselessly and in a stage-by-stage and wavelike way Freedom Shield and other large-scale war exercises and thus perpetuate the structure of vicious cycle of provocation and tension.

It is seeking an anachronistic design to gain advantage of strength in the Asia-Pacific region and realize the geopolitical realignment by expanding the military alliance with its stooges into a comprehensive strategic alliance under the pretext of "threats" from someone.

Under such confrontational and hegemony-oriented line of the US, strategic means including the nuclear submarine Alexandria, B-1B strategic bombers and the nuclear carrier Carl Vinson are constantly deployed in the Korean peninsula and reckless aerial espionage activities and all kinds of joint military exercises are being staged one after another. Such acts are heightening the legitimate security concern of not only our state but also regional countries.

In the wake of the said exercises, they are to conduct over 110 anti-DPRK war drills of all kinds, including the one jointly sponsored by the US-ROK Combined Forces Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the ROK, a 9.7 percent increase as compared with last year. This suggests that the military confrontation hysteria of enemy states will continue as a chronic symptom, not ceasing as a single fit.

The increase in the visibility of deployment of US strategic means on the Korean peninsula and the US-led bilateral and multilateral war rehearsals reminding one of the 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 manoeuvres in the Korean peninsula and the region, advocating the "demonstration of alliance". They may help calm down its stooges feeling the sense of alienation, but it is necessary for everyone to know 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 deterrent to cope with the US’ continued demonstration of military strength.

The US should be mindful that its habitual pursuit of the policy hostile toward the DPRK, in open denial of 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 consequence of escalated security threat.

The trite "succession" to the malicious anti-DPRK practice will inevitably lead to a serious strategic misjudgment. If the US lacks the ability to judge this, its prospects 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.