Why is US afraid of peace breaking out on Korean peninsula

The United States is afraid of peace breaking out on the Korean peninsula because it will then lose rationale for having troops and bases in Japan and South Korea to keep the North Koreans at bay, says Dennis Etler, an American political analyst who has a decades-long interest in international affairs.

Etler, a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday while commenting on a report which says the United States and South Korea are launching a joint military exercise despite warnings by North Korea that the move may jeopardize a nascent rapprochement between Pyongyang and Seoul.

“It should be patently obvious that resuming joint military exercises between the US and South Korea would put the kibosh on any rapprochement between the two Koreas and make the prospects for any talks between North Korea and the US dead on arrival.  Why then proceed with plans for the maneuvers?” Etler said.

“The US, particularly under the Trump administration, feels that it has to enter into any relationship from a position of strength. Trump has in fact reiterated the Reagan shibboleth of ‘Peace through Strength’ which simply means ‘my way or the highway.’ It shows that the US is not sincere in seeking negotiations with the North. Rather it wants to impose its own terms without regard for the other side in the dispute. But even more than that, the US wants to scuttle any possibility of peace talks between the North and the South and any resolution to the conflict between them,” he stated.

“The US is interested in only one thing, and that is maintaining its forward position in East Asia. If peace breaks out on the Korean peninsula what role does the US have to play there? Its whole rationale for having troops and bases in Japan and South Korea is to keep the North Koreans at bay. But, there is a deeper reason for the US wanting to have its troops and fleets deployed in East Asia, and that is its contention with China,” he noted.

“Throughout the Cold War and afterwards US imperialism understood that China was a potential rival for influence in the region. Only by keeping tensions high could the US justify its presence. Thus peace on the Korean peninsula has always been anathema to US interests,” the analyst noted.

“With the prospects of US ideological influence in China waning and the reassertion of Chinese power throughout what has been dubbed the Indo-Pacific by Trump and his henchmen, major US power brokers are upping the ante in their contention with China. Both the National Security and Defense Strategies, documents which define US strategic objectives overseas, have targeted China as a competitor and an existential threat to US interests in the Asia-Pacific, a region considered by the US to be in its own sphere of influence since the defeat of Japan in WW2,” he said.

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The US is using the North Korean issue in order to maintain a military foothold on the East Asian mainland as a counter to China, Professor Dennis Etler says.

“As in Europe where the US picked up the mantle of Nazi Germany with the formation of NATO, so in Asia the US picked up the cudgel of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a euphemism for the spread of Japanese militarism throughout the region. The recent talk of the formation of a ‘Quad’ consisting of the US, Japan, Australia and India is a direct manifestation of that,” he said.

“For the situation on the Korean peninsula to get off square one South Korea must get out from underneath the US thumb reassert itself. It needs to align with China and forge ties with the North regardless of US objections. The US for its part must recognize the legitimate interests of the North and negotiate in good faith. Continued war games will only exacerbate tensions and make reasonable accommodations by either side unlikely or well-nigh impossible, which seems to be the US game plan all along,” Professor Etler concluded.

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