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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.
Terrified evacuees flood into Incheon
Global call for calm between Koreas
The Koreas clash
Geography of the Korea dispute
Attack on island in the Yellow Sea
Map: N. Korea shells S. Korean island

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.
There are tremendous pressures on the president of South Korea to hang tough.
--Ex-CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy
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North Korea
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"The Lee Myung-bak group's treacherous and anti-reunification acts are intolerable as it vitiated the atmosphere for improving the inter-Korean relations overnight and drove the situation to the brink of war, challenging the desire of all the Koreans," KCNA said, referring to South Korea's president.

Terrified survivors of the attack expressed shock at the sudden nature of the incident. Many of the 1,756 residents of the island were fleeing to safer ground, leaving their possessions behind. Some said they were too afraid to ever return home.

Two South Korean marines were killed in the attack and the bodies of two civilians were found at a construction site.

The attack also injured 15 South Korean soldiers and three civilians, South Korea said.

"We have come to the judgment that what happened on Yeonpyeong Island was a definite military provocation against the Republic of Korea," said a statement from South Korean President Lee.

"The fact that they have indiscriminately fired upon a defenseless civilian zone was a brutally inhumane action, an illegal and intentional action against the U.N. constitution and the armistice between the North and South Korea."

The South was on high alert, but said it was calmly considering its actions.

The Yellow Sea is a longstanding flash point between the two Koreas. A disputed maritime border has resulted in several clashes since the end of the Korean War almost six decades ago.

Tensions spiked earlier this year with the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan that killed 46 sailors. Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing the ship. Pyongyang denied responsibility.

After Tuesday's incident, all eyes turned to China, which supplies North Korea with food, fuel and weapons.

"We regret the casualties and property losses, and are concerned about the situation," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement released Wednesday.

"China strongly urges that both sides retain calm and restrain, and engage in talks as quickly as possible in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again," the statement said. "Relevant parties should contribute more to efforts that will ease tensions and benefit the peace and stability of the peninsula. We are ready to make joint efforts with them."