Pyongyang, June 3 (KCNA) — Kim Myong Chol, an international affairs analyst of the DPRK, made public the following article “The remarks on the ‘dagger in the heart of Asia’ are an intensive manifestation of the U.S. hegemonism and Cold War mentality” on June 3:
Brunson, commander of the U.S. forces in the ROK, in a recent interview described the ROK as the “dagger in the heart of Asia”, triggering an international controversy.
He said that when they look out from the east coast of China, what they see is there’s the ROK, the “dagger in the heart of Asia”. He added that Japan plays the role of sort of a shield as well as the role of checking China’s ambition to make inroads into the South China Sea and then the Philippines down to its southeast.
The Chinese Embassy in the ROK said Brunson’s comments “crossed the line”, and asked the commander: “Are your remarks rife with hostility and aggression regarding China authorized by Washington?”
The ROK also expressed its discomfort, saying that it has been “maintaining communication” with the U.S. And the media expressed concern that Brunson’s comments might be interpreted as an intention to expand the ROK-U.S. alliance and the role of the U.S. forces in the ROK in “containing China”.
And Brunson made up some excuses, saying that his remarks were misreported and he merely intended to explain the operational conditions. But his assertion served as an occasion of revealing once again the position of the ROK as an advanced base for carrying out the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy.
In fact, his remarks are not an impromptu assertion but fully reflect the strategic vision of the successive U.S. administrations intended to use the ROK as an important geopolitical instrument to realize its regional strategy aimed at containing China.
The U.S. has occupied the ROK and used it as a military springboard for invasion of the Asian continent since the 1940s, uttering that the Korean peninsula is just like a “dagger” for cutting a “lump of meat” called Asia. And so far it has ceaselessly sharpened the “dagger” for its regional hegemony.
In particular, the U.S. has put forward the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy aimed at containing China and the Indo-Pacific strategy, a detailed and extended version of the former strategy, and focused on attaining the military edge in the region since the end of the Cold War.
To this end, it has tightened its grip on the ROK militarily through the deployment of THAAD and joint military exercises and accelerated the efforts to increase the combat capability of the U.S. forces in the ROK and improve their ability to launch integrated operations with allies.
The U.S., which had expressed its plan to reorganize the U.S. forces in the ROK into the “strategic task force” and “regional expeditionary force” since 2004, reached an agreement with the ROK on “strategic flexibility” of the U.S. forces in the ROK in January 2006, and in the 2010 Defense Department report, it clarified for the first time that the U.S. forces in the ROK could be dispatched to other regions according to the principle of “strategic flexibility”.
Recently, it more openly advocated the “modernization of the U.S.-ROK alliance” talking about “bolstering up conventional deterrent against all threats in the region” and “ensuring peace and security in the Taiwan Strait” at the 57th U.S.-ROK annual security consultative meeting in November last year. And in the National Security Strategy Report in December that year, it stressed the need for the regional allies including the ROK to increase the defence expenditure with the main emphasis on strengthening the capabilities needed for containing hostile countries and protecting the “first island chain”.
According to such policy, the U.S. resorted to arms buildup by forming an “expeditionary reconnaissance battalion” involving the multi-mission drone MQ-9 Reaper in the ROK and deploying more F-16 fighters for establishing the “super-powerful wing”.
Recently alone, it approved the sale of 24 new-type helicopters for naval operation MH-60R and parts of attack helicopters AH-64E Apache to the ROK and conducted the training of the U.S. Army multi-domain mobile task force created with the aim of containing neighboring countries within the “first island chain”, promoting the coordination of the U.S. military posture in the region.
International media and experts unanimously comment that such U.S. attempt is aimed at coordinating the role, mission and military posture of the U.S. forces in the ROK and the ROK army in the direction of concentrating on deterring major rival states in the Asia-Pacific region.
This makes it possible to realize that the U.S.-ROK nuclear submarine cooperation and the integration of nuclear and conventional forces, which are causing concern of the international community, are, in the long run, directly linked to the attempt to ensure the “strategic flexibility” of the U.S. forces in the region and make use of the ROK for containing China.
All these facts clearly prove that the U.S.-ROK alliance is the core axis in the new national defense strategy of the U.S. mainly aimed at encircling and deterring its major rival in the Asia-Pacific region.
The U.S.-ROK alliance, which is evolving into a more confrontation-oriented one day by day, has become a fundamental factor in further deteriorating military tension and creating constant instability in the Asia-Pacific region, arousing due vigilance of the regional countries and the international community aspiring after peace and stability.
It is by no means fortuitous that regional countries are recently becoming increasingly critical of the U.S. and the ROK strengthening their alliance and, in particular, expressing deep concern that the ROK may eventually be driven into the same plight as that of Ukraine as it is standing at the strategic crossroads in the competitive relations between the U.S. and China.
The recent remarks of the commander of the U.S. forces in the ROK clearly show the vicious appearance of the U.S. as the chieftain of harassing peace and the world’s worst war empire, which has regarded the Korean peninsula and its vicinity as the main battlefield for camp confrontation and new Cold War.
The U.S. attempt to bolster up the collective deterrence against the anti-imperialist independent forces in the Asia-Pacific region will inevitably invite security concerns of neighboring powers and promote increased cooperation to offset it. -0-
www.kcna.kp (2026.06.03.)
