Ulchi-Freedom Guardian
annual combined military exercise between South Korea and the United States
Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (을지 프리덤 가디언, Eulji peurideom gadieon) is the name (as of 2015) of the military exercise previously known as Ulchi-Focus Lens, a combined military exercise between South Korea and the United States. The exercise is the world's largest computerized command and control implementation, involving 50,000 South Korean troops alongside 17,500 U.S. troops in 2017, and mainly focuses on defending South Korea from a North Korean attack. The exercise was initiated in 1976 and is conducted annually during August or September. The word 'Ulchi' comes from the name of a famous Korean general called Ŭlchi Mundŏk, who was the Commander-In-Chief of the army of Goguryeo.
History
The origin of the exercise is Taeguk Yeonseup (태극연습, Taeguk Exercise), which began after the Blue House Raid by North Korean special forces in 1968. The title of the exercise was changed to Ulchi Yeonseup (을지연습, Ulchi Exercise) in the following year. In 1976, it was integrated with ROK-US Combined Forces Command's military training, Focus Lens, into Ulchi-Focus Lens. The name of the exercise was changed again in 2008 to Ulchi-Freedom Guardian.
The exercise has on occasion included contingents from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
In 2022, thousands of protesters demonstrated against the drills in South Korea.
“Ulchi-Freedom Guardian” enters the record as annual combined military exercise between South Korea and the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ulchi-Freedom, Guardian and annual can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q498182. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2017, 1976 and 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ulchi-Freedom Guardian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.