Spring on the Korean Peninsula is normally the season of D-Day-style beach landings with big guns thumping in the distance and skies crisscrossed by the contrails of fighter aircraft.
But as the North and South prepare for their first summit in more than a decade this Friday, there is something different in the air: the hope of detente. Or at least of a much-needed respite.
Korea has for decades been the site of the world’s largest annual military maneuvers between the US and its ally South Korea.
This year, the exercises have been postponed, scaled back, probably shortened and certainly toned down. They have not, however, been canceled.
This year’s exercises began on April 1 and are expected to continue through the end of the month, possibly longer.
Normally they begin in March or earlier. At their height in the late 1980s, 200,000 troops participated in Team Spirit, making them the largest annual maneuvers in the world.