South Korea, Japan and US to hold nuclear missile drill focused on North Korea

South Korea, Japan, and the United States are gearing up for a joint nuclear missile defense exercise scheduled for September 9-11, 2026. The drill, dubbed Freedom Edge, will take place in international waters south and east of Jeju Island, and it’s aimed squarely at sharpening the three nations’ ability to counter North Korean missile and nuclear threats. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the exercise on August 28, framing it as defensive in nature. Given that North Korea lobbed approximately 10 short-range ballistic missiles around August 20, “defensive” is doing some heavy lifting but isn’t inaccurate. What Freedom Edge actually involves The three-day exercise is designed to enhance interoperability, which is military speak for making sure three different nations’ armed forces can actually work together seamlessly when it counts. Previous iterations of the Freedom Edge drill have featured Aegis-equipped destroyers from all three navies alongside strategic bombardment runs by US B-52H and B-1B bombers. Freedom Edge traces its origins to the Camp David summit in August 2023, where the leaders of South Korea, Japan, and the US agreed to deepen their trilateral military ...