Stephen Cho | Coordinator of the Korean International Forum
The storm of World War 3, unleashed by imperialism, is attacking the Western Pacific by way of Eastern Europe and West Asia (Middle East). In World War 3, one front, called the anti-imperialist front, was formed at three representative theaters, which are in the Eastern Europe theater, including Ukraine; in the West Asia theater, including Palestine; and in the East Asia theater, including the “ROK” and Taiwan. However, the East Asia theater is being expanded to the West Pacific theater. Adding Australia and New Zealand to East Asia gives the Western Pacific.
Today, the Eastern theater of Asia is not confined to the “Republic of Korea (ROK)” and Taiwan. The US never conceals the plan that if war begins in the “ROK” or Taiwan, the US would escalate it into the East Asian War and, by extension, into the Western Pacific War. They would expand the theater to include the “first island chain,” centered around Japan and connected to the Philippines via Taiwan, and to the “second island chain,” extending from Japan to Papua New Guinea via Guam, and finally to Australia and New Zealand beyond the “second island chain.”
At the US-Japan foreign and defense ministers’ talks on July 28, it was decided to create the Joint Operations Command of Japan’s Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense Forces Joint Operations Command and a unified command within the US Forces Japan (USFJ) by the beginning of next year. This means, in the near future, Japan’s “Self-Defense Forces” (JSDF) that is incapable of engaging in war, will become the Japanese military that is capable of engaging in war, and the operational command authority of the USFJ will be transferred from US Indo-Pacific Command to the USFJ. In other words, the possibility of war has increased in East Asia, including Northeast Asia and, by extension, the West Pacific. 55,000 of USFJ is the main force of the US forces in the Indo-Pacific.
“(Northeast) Asian NATO” including the US, Japan, and the “ROK,” led by the US, was manipulated by agreeing with the NATO way of “Principle of Collective Defense” at the Camp David summit in August 2023, exercised real-time missile warning data sharing system in December, and conducted war games named “Freedom Edge,” which is the NATO way of a multi-domain joint military exercise in this June. With the Philippines joining in place of India, which did not attend the NATO summit in Washington, the “SQUAD” of the US, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines was formed, thus, war exercises against China have been fiercely waged in Philippine waters. Also, there is “AUKUS” of the US, Britain, and Australia.
“RIMPAC 2024”, more expanded than the Cold War, was conducted on the largest scale, with 40 ships, three submarines, 150 aircraft, and 25,000 troops from 29 countries participating. NATO member countries joined the “Pacific Skies” exercise, with Australia, in the Pacific region such as Australia from mid-June to mid-August. Germany also participated in the joint air exercises held in Japan, which was one of the “Pacific Skies.” That is under the NATO umbrella, Germany and Japan, which were all war criminal countries during World War 2, as well as fascist states, are carrying out joint military exercises.
The US has adopted the “Nuclear Posture Review,” “Washington Declaration,” “Nuclear Consultative Group,” and “Guidelines on Nuclear Strategy Planning and Operation” and is putting the nuclear confrontation policies against DPRK into action. Compared with 2022, the frequency of the US nuclear submarine sightings increased seven times, and the frequency of fighter and bomber sightings increased four times on the Korean Peninsula and its surrounding waters in 2023. In addition, nuclear aircraft carriers have continued to be deployed, and advanced military equipment from the US, such as F-35 stealth fighters and SM-6 ship-to-air interceptor missiles, is being brought in on a large scale. Regarding the “Ulchi Freedom Shield,” which is held from August 19th to 29th, the outside maneuver training will be conducted 48 times, which is ten more than last year, and the brigade-level exercises will be carried out 17 times, which is four times more than last year, and have evolved into provocative war drills such as “Occupation of Pyongyang” and “Decapitation Operation.”
On July 28, the US-Japan-“ROK” Defense Ministers’ Meeting signed the “Memorandum of Cooperation on the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework” and agreed to regularly and systematically conduct the multi-domain trilateral exercises, meetings among the three Defense Ministers and meetings among the three Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yoon Suk-yeol administration of the “ROK” has condoned the historical distortion regarding the Japanese invasion, and the sophistry surrounding Dokdo’s sovereignty by the Japanese Kishida government. It also accepted Japan’s possession of the “enemy base strike capability” and its purchase of US Tomahawk missiles. From these facts, it revealed itself to be a pro-US and pro-Japanese traitor, as well as a fascist warmonger. The US imperialism completed its job of organizing the “ROK” fascist under the Japanese militarism, and the Japanese militarist gangs are frenzied with their ambition of reinvasion by conducting joint military exercises with the “ROK,” the Philippines, and other countries.
Various exercises to invade other countries operated and led by the US are being carried out in a frenzy. Frist, let list the imperialist military exercise directly related to “ROK” from June to August this summer: US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft RC-135W “Rivet Joint” flew a reconnaissance flight over the West Sea on June 4, US Strategic Bomber B1B were mobilized for joint air exercises with South Korea on June 5, US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft “Rivet Joint”’s a reconnaissance flight on June 6, loudspeaker broadcasts against North Korea resumed on June 9, US military heavily armed aircraft “Ghostrider” deployed to participate in special warfare exercises on June 12, US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft RC-135S “Cobra Ball” flew over the East Sea on June 14, Theodore Roosevelt Nuclear Carrier Strike Group entered the operational base in Busan on June 22, “ROK” resumed the live-fire artillery drills near the northwestern martime border in seven years on June 26, US-Japan-“ROK” Multi-Domain Joint Exercise “Freedom Edge” with Roosevelt nuclear carrier participantion from June 27 to 29, “ROK” resumed frontline artillery firing drills for the first time in six years on July 2, during the “RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific exercise)”, “ROK” conducted SM2 anti-ship missile launching drills on July 9, US-“ROK” special operations air descent drills from July 15 to 31, US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft “Rivet Joint” flew over the Korean Peninsula from July 17 to 18, daily propaganda broadcassts against North Korea from July 19, US-“ROK” integrated firepower drills from July 22 to August 3, US-“ROK” held joint air exercises July 23 to August 8, US-“ROK” CNI (Conventional-Nuclear Integration)-TTX (Naval Integration Tabletop Exercise “Iron Mace 2024” from July 30 to August 1, US and “ROK” Marines held joint maritime exercises in Pohang, South Korea from August 12, US and “ROK” held crisis management exercises which are preliminary drills for the US-“ROK”’s Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) from August 13 to 16, US-“ROK” conducted Ulchi Freedom Shield from August 19 to 29, etc.
Next, we can list noteworthy exercises in other countries: the annual joint USA-Philippines exercise “Marine Aviation Support Activity 2024” from June 3-21; the first participation of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in the USA-France-Japan-Canada multinational field training exercise “Valiant Shield” from June 7-18; two U.S.-Philippines live-fire exercises on June 15; the USA-Canada-Japan-Philippines “Maritime Cooperative Activity” on June 17; the France-Germany-Spain-Japan joint air exercise “Pacific Skies” from mid-June to mid-August; the “RIMPAC” exercise hosted by the US Third Fleet, in which 25,000 troops from 29 countries and nine NATO member states participated from June 27 to August 1; an entry of the US Navy Seventh Fleet’s USS Blue Ridge into Cam Rahn Port in central Vietnam on July 8; the multinational joint air exercise “Pitch Black,” hosted by Autrslia, involving 140 aircfrats and 4,000 troops from 20 countries from July 12 to August 2; the bilateral US-Philipphine Coast Guards search and rescue exercise in the South China Sea on July 16; the USA-UK-Australia-Philippines joint live-fire exercise “Predator’s Run” in northern Australia from July 17 to August 8; the USA-Japan-France joint air exercise “Pegase 24,” hosted by France, on July 19; the France-Germany-Spain-Japan joint air exercise in Japan’s mainland from July 19-25; a deployment of US strategic bomber B1B to air space between Japan and the “ROK” as the USA-Japan joint war exercise on August 2; the first bilateral maritime exercise between the Philippine Navy and the Japan Maritime “Self-Defense Force” in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone on August 2; and the USA-Canada-Australia-Philippines joint maritime exercise near sea of the Philippines on August 7-8.
The 2024 NATO Summit, held in Washington on July 9-11, made Japan, the “ROK,” Australia, and New Zealand its important partners, calling them “IP4.” They are practically NATO members. In fact, they participated in the multinational joint maritime exercise “RIMPAC 2024,” held from June 26 to August 2 this year. It is no coincidence that Yoon Suk-yeol of the “ROK visited the US Indo-Pacific Command in Honolulu on July 9, where the “RIMPAC” exercise was ongoing, to deliver a puppet speech as the US wished, in the presence of US military generals and that he participated in the 2024 NATO Summit just before its start. It can be said that the “Pacificization of NATO” was completed with the NATO Summit process in which Japan and the “ROK” participated steadily from the summits in Madrid, Spain, in 2022 through Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2023, and to Washington, USA, in 2024, and with the “RIMPAC 2024,” in which the largest ever number of NATO members participated this year and conducted multinational and multidomain joint military exercises.
In late August, the USA-“ROK” joint war drill “Ulchi Freedom Shield” reflected a “nuclear operation” scenario that included a preemptive nuclear strike on the DPRK. The Korean Peninsula is already in a state of “low-intensity war,” and US imperialism and its war puppet Yoon Suk-yeol are desperate to provoke a war in the “ROK.” The war in the “ROK” will be the war in East Asia and even the war in the Western Pacific.
