Dangerous play with fire destroying peace, stability on the Korean peninsula

The U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are the main factor driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the constant instability and the critical brink of a nuclear war.

The U.S. had involved nuclear weapons including Honest John tactical nuclear missile, 280 mm atomic cannon in Focus Lens and Focus Retina joint military drills in the 1950s and 1960s, mobilized B-1B strategic bomber and a nuclear submarine in the Team Spirit and Ulchi Focus Lens joint military exercises which started in 1970s and staged the atomic cannon training and Lance nuclear missile-launching drills.

The U.S. massed huge nuclear war hardware and armed forces for aggression in the Korean peninsula and its surroundings in 1968 when its armed spy ship Pueblo was seized and in 1969 when its large-sized spy plane EC-121 was shot down, driving the situation to the touch-and-go one while talking about "retaliation" and "all-out war".

In particular, the U.S. staged the Team Spirit joint military exercises for two or three months every year from the 1970s to the early 1990s, with hundreds of thousands of troops and all sorts of nuclear war hardware including nuclear carrier involved. The exercises left indelible ill fame in history as they drove the situation on the Korean peninsula to the threshold of a nuclear war.

It is well known that the U.S. released the "nuclear posture review" terming the DPRK the first target of a preemptive nuclear strike in 2002 and staged the drills for a preemptive nuclear attack by fabricating the "joint nuclear operation doctrine" to carry out the review in 2005.

Key Resolve, Foal Eagle and Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military exercises staged in the above-said period were very dangerous nuclear war exercises in which all military hardware, capability, and manpower were mobilized according to OPLAN 5027 and OPLAN 5015, the war scenarios aimed at making a preemptive strike at the DPRK.

OPLAN 5027 was revised in 1994 for the purpose of "toppling" the government of the Republic if a war breaks out under the pretext of coping with an all-out war on the Korean peninsula, and expanded into a large-scale all-out war drill with 690 000 U.S. imperialist aggression forces involved in 1998 and was changed into a heinous war scenario for the purpose of the "unification under liberal democracy" by "eliminating the leadership" and annexing the Republic militarily.

OPLAN 5015 includes OPLAN 5027, OPLAN 5029, and OPLAN 5030 which had been revised and supplemented by the U.S. and south Korean puppets through the north-targeted joint military exercises, and they are the most dangerous nuclear war scenarios including even the thrice-cursed "beheading operation" aimed at "eliminating" the leadership of the DPRK with precision strike weapons and special warfare troops.

Not content with this, the U.S. shaped the "tailored deterrence strategy" that in case a "sign of the use" of the DPRK's nuclear weapons is detected, a preemptive strike on it is made with conventional armed forces and nuclear strike means in October 2013, and has openly applied it since Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military drills started in April 2014.

Timed to coincide with Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military exercises in August 2015, the U.S. instigated the south Korean puppet military warmongers to fabricate the incident of a "shelling from the north" in the area along the Military Demarcation Line and committed a grave military provocation shelling the area of the DPRK side and thus drove the situation on the Korean peninsula to a touch-and-go situation.

The U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises have caused great harm to the course of peaceful settlement of the issue of the Korean peninsula and the reconciliation and movement for reunification of the Korean nation.

By staging the Focus Lens joint military exercises in 1954, the U.S. frustrated a political meeting for peaceful settlement of the Korean issue and recklessly violated the Armistice Agreement Paragraph 12 on ensuring the total stop to hostile acts and all armed actions in Korea.

The U.S. which committed a serious military provocation recorded in history as the Panmunjom incident had staged the notorious Team Spirit and Ulchi Focus Lens joint military exercises every year from 1976, and threw a wet blanket over the ardent aspiration of all the Korean people for reunification after the publication of the July 4 North-South Joint Statement and got hell-bent on the moves to eliminate the joint statement.

When the north-south Red-Cross talks were resumed and the climate of reconciliation was created in which the travel of art troupes of Red Cross and home-visiting groups between the north and the south was realized in 1985 for the first time, thanks to the positive efforts of the government of the DPRK, the U.S. frustrated the inter-Korean dialogue arranged with much trouble by staging the provocative Team Spirit joint military exercises.

Several rounds of north-south high-level talks were held and meaningful agreements were made in the 1990s but they did not bring practical improvement to inter-Korean relations owing to the U.S. which staged the large-scale joint military drills by mobilizing massive nuclear war hardware while clamoring about the "precision strike at Nyongbyon nuclear facilities".

When the historic June 15 Joint Declaration was adopted, the U.S. staged large-scale joint military exercises integrating the "reception, staging, onward movement and integration" and Foal Eagle joint military exercises, and when the October 4 Declaration was adopted, the U.S. staged the frantic large-scale joint military exercises in a bid to weaken the sentiment for independent reunification.

During the tenure of office by traitors Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-Hye, the U.S. invented the "tailored deterrence strategy" and the "joint plan for coping with the provocation of a local war" and drove the confrontation with the DPRK to an extreme phase by staging all kinds of joint military exercises including Key Resolve, Foal Eagle, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, Ssangyong, and Max Thunder while positively instigating the south Korean puppet authorities to a total blocking of north-south relations and confrontation with fellow countrymen.

When an extreme atmosphere of reconciliation was created between the north and the south with the 23rd Winter Olympics as a momentum, the U.S. resumed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises as soon as the Olympics was over, doggedly blocking the atmosphere of reconciliation, cooperation, and peace on the Korean peninsula.

Whenever the DPRK advanced peaceful proposals for settling the issue of the Korean peninsula, including the proposal for concluding a peace agreement between the DPRK and the U.S. (1974), the proposal for convening the tripartite talks the south Korean authorities, too, participate in the DPRK-U.S. talks (1984), the proposal for establishing a new peace system (1994) and the proposal for starting as soon as possible the talks for replacing the armistice agreement with peace once in the year, the 60th year of the outbreak of the Korean war (2010), the U.S. staged the frantic joint military exercises together with the south Korean puppets, only to reveal their belligerent color.

All the facts go to prove that the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises constitute the main stumbling block to the reconciliation and unity of the Korean nation and the peace of the Korean peninsula.

The present U.S. administration, too, is fanning the puppet authorities into the frenzy of confrontation while talking nonsense that the relations with the south Korean puppets should be developed into a "package strategic alliance".

The ground, air, and naval joint military exercises staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet army one after another after the change of the south Korean "regime" are driving the unstable situation of the Korean peninsula to an extreme pitch of strain.

An agreement on bringing back the "U.S.-south Korea extended deterrence strategy and consultation group meeting" online at the talks between the U.S. chief executive and the south Korean puppet traitor held last May tells that the U.S. nuclear strategic assets including nuclear carrier, nuclear strategic bomber and the nuclear submarine can be deployed on a rotation basis in south Korea anytime and frequently participate in the joint military exercises with the south Korean puppet army.

U.S.-south Korea joint Military exercises have negative impact on neighboring countries

The danger of the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises is also that they are causing grave harm to the normal development and security of those countries around the DPRK and bringing a dark cloud of a new Cold War.

It is a well-known fact that the frantic U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are part of realizing the U.S. strategy for hegemony designed to contain not only the DPRK but also China and Russia by force of arms.

After defining China growing rapidly and Russia propelling the building of a powerful state as the principal "challenge" and "threat" to realizing its strategy for world hegemony, the U.S. is getting hell-bent on forming an encirclement ring against China and Russia in an all-round way.

To this end, the U.S. is taking the road of expanding the role of the U.S.-south Korea alliance into realizing the military purpose not only to militarily threaten and blackmail the DPRK but also to contain China and Russia in Northeast Asia.

The heinous intention sought by the U.S. is to fabricate an "Asian version of NATO" in the Asia-Pacific on the basis of the U.S.-led economic and military blocs such as QUAD and AUKUS under the signboard of "intensified alliance", making bilateral and multilateral joint military exercises with the south Korean puppets, Japan and Australia regular and thus form trans-Pacific encircling net for containing China and Russia.

This suggests that the U.S. is going to stage large-scale joint military exercises while clamoring about the DPRK's nuclear and missile "threat" and then additionally deploy THAAD in south Korea and intermediate-range missiles in the surrounding areas with it as an opportunity.

This is by no means unrelated to the fact that recently the south Korean puppet authorities, frequently staging joint military exercises on the ground and in the air and sea with the U.S., show the tendency of refusing the so-called "policy of three no-participation" related to the THAAD issue.

The "rumor of threat from north Korea" advertised by the U.S. as a pretext to rationalize the joint military exercises is no more than a signboard to maintain its hegemonic position in the Asia-Pacific and encircle and contain China and Russia and in case the scale and number of the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are expanded, south Korea will be a bridgehead for realizing the U.S. strategy against China and Russia.

Once a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula where interests of big powers are intertwined and which is geopolitically located in a very important position, it is bound to be expanded easily into a world war, a thermo-nuclear war unprecedented in the world, and this will bring catastrophic consequences to the peace and security of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia and, moreover, the rest of the world.

When viewing such a prospect of the situation, the DPRK's war deterrent is, indeed, the only and the most reliable means for defending peace and stability and preventing war in the Korean peninsula and the region.