Research Report of Society for Study of International Affairs

Research Report of Society for Study of International Affairs

Pyongyang, September 4 (KCNA) -- The Society for International Politics Study released a research report "The U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are the cancer-like factor harassing peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region" on Sunday.

Following is the full text of the report:

Dark clouds of a nuclear war are constantly hanging over the Korean peninsula due to the U.S. invariable hostile policy and daily-increasing military threats towards the DPRK.

The U.S. aggressive nature and moves for isolating and pressing the DPRK have been clearly recorded in the history of the showdown between the DPRK and the U.S. which has continued century by century and down through generations. But the U.S. is now resorting to the hostile acts and nuclear threat and blackmail unprecedented in scale, character and method.

The U.S. has steadily renewed the nuclear war scenarios aimed at the DPRK after setting it as the main means of its policy towards the DPRK to stifle our ideology and social system by strength, and has driven the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a war while training and perfecting the scenarios through all sorts of joint military drills.

We have already warned the U.S. several times that the joint military drills staged by it with the south Korean puppets are a vivid expression of its hostile policy toward the DPRK and a grave threat to peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region.

Nevertheless, the U.S. is openly committing hostile acts toward the DPRK, staging the joint military drills this year as the actual war drills beyond the sphere and scale of those in the past.

The Society for International Politics Study of the DPRK makes public this research report to reveal the gravity and dangerousness of the joint military drills staged by the U.S. with the south Korean puppets and to bring to light again at home and abroad who is the provoker and wrecker of peace causing the evil cycle of détente and bringing the practical danger of a nuclear war.

 

Aggressive War Drills Lasting on Earth in Longest Period

 

There are no such joint military exercises lasting on the earth for a long period as those on the Korean peninsula.

The frantic U.S.-south Korea joint military drills unprecedented in history have been staged without interruption for nearly 70 years since the conclusion of the Korean Armistice Agreement.

The U.S. started its aggressive war drills by staging Focus Lens joint military drills in 1954, the year after the conclusion of the Korean Armistice Agreement.

The joint military drills were renamed after the Ulji Focus Lens from 1976 and after the Ulji Freedom Guardian from 2008, expanding their sphere and scale. They were renamed after Ulji Freedom Shield this year.

Focus Retina joint military exercises started in 1969 were renamed after Freedom Bolt in 1971 and Team Spirit from 1976 and had been staged until 1993.

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. reduced the scale and sphere of military drills in other regions of the world but staged the nuclear war drills more undisguised in their bellicose and aggressive nature than those in the period of the Cold War on the Korean peninsula only.

When Team Spirit joint military exercises were strongly denounced at home and abroad, the U.S. made public that it would stop them in 1993. But it renamed them after "reception, staging, onward movement and integration" (RSOI) in 1994 and staged them more dangerously than before.

The U.S. has enlarged the war drills aimed at the DPRK systemically since 2000. In particular, the official number of the joint military drills staged by the U.S. with the south Korean puppets in 2001 alone is more than two times as compared with the previous year.

The U.S. integrated the RSOI and Foal Eagle joint military exercises as one from 2002, and escalated the joint military drills by renaming RSOI and Foal Eagle after Key Resolve and Foal Eagle from 2008.

The U.S. has successively staged all kinds of joint military drills such as Max Thunder joint air combat drill, the joint anti-submarine exercise, the combined naval exercise, the combined landing drill and integrated firepower drill with the south Korean puppet army. It has staged the war exercises in the atmosphere of actual war to invade the DPRK on the ground and in the air and sea and underwater.

The number of all kinds of joint military exercises staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppets from 1954 to 2013 are approximately 18 000 times, counting only those opened to media.

The U.S. staged the drills for the nuclear strike against the DPRK by mobilizing such nuclear strategic assets as B-1B, B-52H and B-2A strategic bombers, Ohio-level nuclear-powered submarine and nuclear carrier strike group in Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military drill in 2016.

In 2017, the U.S. openly staged a drill for actual nuclear strike at the DPRK's strategic objects by mobilizing a formation of nuclear strategic bombers deployed at the Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, and staged the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of the U.S. troops and huge nuclear strategic assets including Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strike group, strategic bomber B-1B, nuclear-powered submarines Columbus and Michigan and Stealth fighter F-35B, that are enough to fight a war, and even the U.S. special armed forces.

In November, the same year, the U.S. staged the joint marine military exercises with the south Korean puppet navy by mobilizing the Theodore Roosevelt, Nimitz and Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered carriers and staged Vigilant Ace combined air drills with the south Korean puppets by mobilizing more than 230 fighters and 12 000 U.S. troops in December.

The U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises have been staged without interruption in recent years when the climate of the improved inter-Korean relations and detente had been created on the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. unhesitatingly staged the war drills including Max Thunder joint air combat drills in 2018 when the DPRK-U.S. joint statement and the Panmunjom Declaration were adopted, openly breaking the commitments to the stop to the joint military exercises, and in 2019 staged more than one hundred joint military exercises one after another confirmed by it, including Alliance 19-1 joint military drill (in March), joint special operation drill of the U.S. marines, south Korean puppet marine corps and special operation units (in March), joint infiltration drill aimed at the DPRK's nuclear facilities (in June), Silent Shark joint submarine drill (in July) and the "combined command exercises" (in August).

To top it all, the U.S. conducted the joint military exercises despite the unanimous protest and denunciation at home and abroad in 2020 and 2021 when the whole world suffered from the worst crisis owing to COVID-19.

Entering this year, it staged again the "combined command exercises" with the south Korean puppets in last April and has frantically waged the joint military exercises with the south Korean puppet army as soon as the "regime" was changed in south Korea.

The U.S. chief executive who made a junket to south Korea in May this year discussed and agreed on the matters on the provision of the enlarged deterrence for the south Korean puppets and expansion of the scale and sphere of the joint military drills with a blitz.

This proves how persistently the U.S. is wedded to the joint military exercises against the DPRK.

The U.S. staged the joint air combat drill with the south Korean puppets for two weeks from May 9, the joint medical support field mobile exercises from May 11 to 12, the joint marine military drills with the attendance of the U.S. nuclear carrier Ronald Reagan, guided missile cruiser and destroyer and landing ships of the south Korean puppet navy in the sea around Okinawa from June 2 to 4, the joint air drill with four F-16s of the U.S. Air Force in south Korea and sixteen F-35As, F-15Ks and KF-16s of the south Korean puppet air force involved in the sky above the West Sea of Korea in June 7 and the joint special warfare drills with the attendance of more than 5 000 personnel of special units of the U.S. Army and 100 personnel under the special warfare command of the south Korean puppet army in California State of the U.S. between June 14 and July 9.

It is unusual that the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises were frantically staged on the ground and in the air and sea during the period of less than two months.

As soon as the U.S. chief executive's junket to south Korea was over, the strategic assets including the U.S. nuclear carrier thronged to the Korean peninsula and its surroundings and are staging the frantic joint military exercises with the south Korean puppet army. This proves that the possibility in which a nuclear war breaks out on the Korean peninsula is not the future tense but the present tense.

All the facts fully prove that the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are, indeed, the most barbarous war drills unprecedented on the earth in terms of their aggressive nature, dangerousness and durability.

 

2. The dangerous play with fire destroying peace and 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 the nuclear weapons including Honest John tactical nuclear missile, 280 mm atomic cannon in Focus Lens and Focus Retina joint military drills in 1950s and 1960s, mobilized B-1B strategic bomber and nuclear submarine in the Team Spirit and Ulji Focus Lens joint military exercises which started in 1970s and staged the atomic cannon trainings 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 preemptive nuclear attack by fabricating the "joint nuclear operation doctrine" to carry out the review in 2005.

Key Resolve, Foal Eagle and Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises staged in the above-said period were the 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 drills 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 that had been revised and supplemented by the U.S. and south Korean puppets through the north-targeted joint military exercises, and they are the dangerous nuclear war scenarios including even the thrice-cursed "beheading operation" aimed at "eliminating" the leadership of our state 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 Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military drills started in April 2014.

Timed to coincide with Ulji 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 our 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 Ulji 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 1990s but they did not bring practical improvement of the 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 the 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, Ulji 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 the 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 a peace one 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 a 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 "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" on line at the talks between the U.S. chief executive and the south Korean puppet traitor held in May last tells that the U.S. nuclear strategic assets including nuclear carrier, nuclear strategic bomber and 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.

 

3. 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 harms to normal development and security of those countries around the DPRK and bringing a dark cloud of new Cold War.

It is a well known fact that the frantic U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises are part for 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 "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", make 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 the 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 the 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 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. -0-

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