Incheon, South Korea (CNN) -- The aircraft carrier USS George Washington sailed toward volatile waters off the Korean peninsula Wednesday for planned military exercises with South Korea in a show of force designed to deter a further escalation of hostilities with North Korea.
The exercises were billed as defensive in nature and were a more measured response than the retaliation initially urged by South Korea after North Korea's shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday, the most serious act of hostility since the end of the Korean war.
"It is a long-planned exercise," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"That said, it is meant to send a very strong signal of deterrence and also work with our very close allies in South Korea," Mullen said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "We're very focused on restraint --- not letting this thing get out of control. The South Koreans so far have responded that way. Nobody wants this thing to turn into a conflict."
The shelling of Yeonpyeong Island killed four people -- including two civilians -- and left an entire region fearful of an all-out war.
The U.S. military said the military drills demonstrate the strength of Washington's alliance with Seoul and "our commitment to regional stability through deterrence."
"The policy problem is you want to come up with a response that is strong enough to deter the North Koreans from doing this again, but again, you don't want to do something so strong that you start a war," said Victor Cha, a Korea expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"And I think the Obama administration is doing the right thing," Cha said on CNN's "American Morning." "But in terms of policy, it's a very difficult needle to thread."
The joint U.S.-South Korean war games are set to begin Sunday in the Yellow Sea.
The United States has about 28,500 troops deployed in South Korea. A U.S. defense official said more than 50 U.S. Navy vessels are in the area, including The USS George Washington carrier strike group.
The decision to go ahead with the drill came after South Korea went on high alert and North Korea blamed the South for driving them "to the brink of war."
"I think the real issue now is there are tremendous pressures on the president of South Korea to hang tough, possibly to respond militarily, which he said he would do if there was another flareup," said Mike Chinoy, a senior fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California and a former CNN correspondent in Asia.
"The worry is if there's another kind of episode like this it could spiral out of control," he said.
Pyongyang contended that South Korea provoked the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island by holding a military drill off their shared coast in the Yellow Sea, the North Korean state-run news agency KCNA said. The drills are conducted by Seoul every year.
"The puppet group dared make an uproar over 'a provocation' from someone and cry out for 'punishment' like a thief crying 'stop the thief!'" KCNA said Wednesday. Baca Seterusnya Disini
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