Allied might now fits on a folding table in Pyeongtaek
Officials say the alliance will now be demonstrated at one-sixtieth scale, by hand.
The annual joint exercises between the United States and South Korea will go ahead this month on a stretch of tarmac in Pyeongtaek. Planners will use painted model tanks, a chalk grid and a laminated map of the peninsula. Total participation: nine officers and a folding table.
The downgrade follows the White House order to scale back the drills, which the president tied to Seoul's unwillingness to help denuclearise Iran. Real aircraft have been stood down. The models are said to be accurate to the rivet.
A planning officer at the site described the exercise as fully representative of allied capability.
Everything happens exactly as it would in the field, only quieter, and we can pack it into two crates.
Deterrence, one is told, is largely psychological, and the plastic is a very convincing green. Pyongyang has not commented. There is nothing above the car park to look at.
One is reminded, inevitably, of every alliance that shrank from a promise to a gesture, and then to a photograph of a gesture. The exercise ends Thursday. The crates go back in the storeroom, labelled, in case anybody needs the peninsula defended again on short notice.
