Picket of South Korean and US embassies in London

A small group of members from the British Branch of the Korean Friendship Association picketed the South Korean Embassy followed by the United States Embassy today in London. The group are against the military exercises staged by the US in South Korea as well as the South Korean 'Unification Ministry' and the National Intelligence Service. London, United Kingdom, 15/03/2010.

Every year the US undertakes joint military exercises in South Korea under the tiles of ‘Key Resolve’ and ‘Foal Eagle’, intended to improve the pre-emptive attack capability for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Some see this as a further aggravation of relations with North Korea. The operations mentioned have been staged according to the ‘OPLAN 5027’ scenario, which suggest that there is an all out war occupying the DPRK as
the result of an attack.

The annual US-Korean military joint defence drill, Key Resolve, began on Monday 8th March. The official US Marine Corps site states that,"Key Resolve is primarily a combined forces command operational plan command-post exercise, which concentrates on manoeuvring troops and supplies in the defence of South Korea," and "is considered one of the largest computer generated exercises in the world and involves close training between U.S. and ROK forces."

Once the decision based exercises have finished, operation Foal Eagle can begin. According to globalsecurity.org, "The Foal Eagle Exercise is an annual ROK-US combined field manoeuvre conducted since 1961. Its purposes are to demonstrate ROK-US military resolve to deter war on the Korean peninsula and to improve the combined and joint operational posture."

The Marine Aircraft Group 12 (MAG 12), part of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing play a big part in the exercise. Maj. Kyle Magrisi, MAG-12 headquarters commanding officer said, “The thing about this exercise, Foal Eagle, is it’s the capstone exercise for MAG-12. It’s the largest command and control exercise that we do in any given year. This is our one opportunity to bring all of our units, all four squadrons that are here assigned to MAG-12, to participate in this exercise. This is the only exercise we are able to do that — function as a MAG in its entirety.”