dinsdag 23 augustus 2016
US-South Korean war games inflame Asian tensions
By
Peter Symonds
The
annual joint US-South Korean military exercises known as Ulchi
Freedom Guardian (UFG) began yesterday amid rising tensions in Asia
fuelled by the American military build-up throughout the region.
While nominally aimed against North Korea, the war games consolidate
Washington’s military alliance with Seoul as it makes preparations
for conflict with China.
The
military drills involve around 25,000 US military personnel, of which
2,500 will come from outside South Korea, operating alongside 75,000
South Korean troops. The US has 28,500 troops stationed permanently
in South Korea and is currently restructuring its bases in the
country as part of its broader reorganisation of American military
forces in the Asia Pacific.
North
Korea has responded with militarist threats to launch nuclear strikes
on South Korea and the United States “if they show the slightest
sign of aggression.” Such reckless and inflammatory threats, which
have nothing to do with defending the North Korean people, play
directly into Washington’s hands by providing a pretext for its own
military expansion and provocations in the region.
The
US-led UN Command Military Armistice Commission declared it had
notified the North Korean army that the UFG exercises were
“non-provocative.” This attempt to portray the joint war games as
defensive and benign is false. Over the past five years in
particular, the Obama administration has repeatedly exploited
exercises with South Korea to make a menacing show of force in North
East Asia.
Last
November, the US and South Korea formally adopted a new military
strategy—Operational Plans 5015 (OPLAN 5015)—that is explicitly
offensive in character. In a conflict with North Korea, US and South
Korean forces would make pre-emptive strikes on key targets,
including nuclear facilities, and carry out “decapitation” raids
to assassinate high-level officials, among them North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un.
OPLAN
5015 provides the framework not only for the UFG war games, but also
the Soaring Eagle exercises currently being carried out by the South
Korean Air Force, involving some 60 military aircraft and 530 troops.
According to the Korea
Times,
the air force is practising to “pre-emptively remove the North’s
ballistic missile threats by proactively blocking the missiles and
their supply route.”
The
Korea
Times also
noted that South Korean officials “are paying keen attention to the
possibility that Pyongyang would carry out military provocations”
during or after the UFG exercises. In reality, the huge exercises,
which are premised on war with North Korea, have always heightened
tensions on the Korean Peninsula. During last year’s drill, the US
exploited the situation to station nuclear-capable B-2 stealth
bombers at its bases on Guam in the western Pacific.
The
current war games are particularly reckless because of growing signs
of instability in Pyongyang. Seoul last week reported the defection
of
a high-level North Korean official—the number two in its embassy in
London. Washington has deliberately sought to destabilise the North
Korean regime by strangling its economy through punitive sanctions
and isolating the country diplomatically.
The
US is boosting its defence ties with South Korea as part of its
“pivot to Asia” and war drive against China. Earlier this month
the Obama administration approved the sale of military GPS systems to
South Korea to improve the capability of its Korea GPS Guided Bomb.
On August 14, the Yonhap news agency cited a top official in Seoul
saying that South Korea would expand its ballistic missile arsenal to
be able to destroy all North Korean military installations
simultaneously.
The
most significant move, however, was the announcement last month that
the US will station its Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD)
system in South Korea as part of its anti-ballistic missile network
in the western Pacific. THAAD, which can intercept and destroy
ballistic missiles, is not aimed primarily against Pyongyang, but
against Beijing. It is part of US preparations for nuclear war with
China, which has objected to the THAAD deployment.
Relations
between Seoul and Beijing have soured as South Korea has been
increasingly integrated into US war plans. Chinese authorities joined
their North Korean counterparts in condemning the US-South Korean war
games. The state-owned Xinhua news agency criticised US
“muscle-flexing,” warning it would “lead to a vicious circle of
violence for violence” that could provoke fighting.
Last
week, the Chinese military held its own exercises in the Sea of Japan
involving a simulated bomber attack on a naval task force. The
potential for a mistake or minor incident provoking a broader
conflict was also highlighted last week when three Chinese military
aircraft flew briefly into an area covered by overlapping Chinese and
South Korean air defence identification zones. The South Korean air
force scrambled fighter jets to escort the “intruders” out of the
area.
Beijing
is concerned that South Korea is not only strengthening military ties
with the US but also with Japan. Until recently, Seoul resisted US
pressure to coordinate more closely with Japan, given Tokyo’s
brutal colonial record on the Korean Peninsula before 1945. The US is
keen to integrate both its North Asian allies into military plans,
pressing in the first instance for closer intelligence sharing, which
is necessary to integrate US anti-ballistic missile systems in Japan
and South Korea.
Under
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, encouraged by the US, Japan has moved to
remilitarise and take a more aggressive stance against China, not
only over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islets in the East China Sea
but throughout the region. The Japan
Times revealed
over the weekend that China had warned Japan not to send its military
forces to join provocative “freedom of navigation” operations
challenging Chinese territorial claims in another flashpoint—the
South China Sea. Such an action by Japan would constitute a “red
line”—in other words, could lead to Chinese retaliation.
Five
years after President Barack Obama announced the “pivot to Asia,”
Washington’s reckless actions have led to a dangerous heightening
of geo-political tensions throughout the Asia Pacific. The worsening
of the longstanding confrontation on the Korean Peninsula is just one
of the potential triggers for a war involving nuclear-armed powers
that could rapidly engulf the region and the world.
This
article first appeared on WorldSocialist
Web Site (WSWS)
on
23
August 2016,
and was republished with permission.
Labels:
Article in English,
China,
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