US, South Korea launch largest-ever joint logistics exercise

Dragon Lift evacuation drill tests mass casualty response

The 2026 Combined Joint Sustainment Training, a biennial field exercise organized by the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, began Monday in and around the southeastern coastal city of Pohang and the northern county of Hongcheon. It will run through Thursday.

The exercise involves more than 2,400 South Korean soldiers and 2,000 U.S. soldiers along with assets including naval vessels and aircraft, CFC said.

“Sustainment is essential to victory in war,” Maj. Gen. Park Jin-won, CFC’s assistant chief of staff for logistics, said in a statement. “Through this year’s ROK-U.S. Combined Joint Sustainment Training, we maximized our full-domain sustainment capabilities across land, sea and air.”

Drills include the Dragon Lift medical evacuation exercise, which practices transporting injured personnel in a simulated mass casualty scenario. Medical personnel from both militaries performed emergency triage and treatment before transporting patients by helicopter, train and C-130 aircraft.

The allies also practiced unloading equipment and supplies from ships when port facilities are unavailable. The drill marked the first use of South Korea’s joint logistics-over-the-shore system to receive U.S. cargo, testing interoperability between the two militaries.

“In a crisis we cannot assume the ports will be there when we need them,” Maj. Gen. Frederick Crist, deputy director for logistics at Combined Forces Command, said in a statement.

“The logistics exercise demonstrates that the allies can move combat power across an open beach, and offloading American ships through a Korean system for the first time shows what interoperability looks like in practice,” he said.

The training also strengthened protection measures for logistics hubs against evolving battlefield threats such as hostile drone attacks, the CFC said.

This year’s CJST comes as North Korea continues to strengthen its military posture and expand its nuclear forces while maintaining a hard-line stance toward Seoul, which leader Kim Jong Un has declared a “hostile state.” Pyongyang has long condemned U.S.-South Korea joint military drills as rehearsals for invasion and cites the alliance as justification for its nuclear weapons program.