I wrote this in 2017 as Trump’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis – soon to be fired by the bizarre former president – was visiting South Korea and Japan to prepare for what many saw as an inevitable war with North Korea. The story explained the view from Congress, where regime change in Pyongyang was the name of the game. Sadly, the hearing, and US policy in general, reflected the absurd view that the US is an innocent bystander in Korea despite its 70+ years of military domination of the peninsula.
In general, the hearing reflected the U.S. view that America is an innocent bystander in a peninsula it has dominated militarily for 71 years. According to this conceptual framework, held by both Democrats and Republicans, massive US military exercises conducted several times a year with South Korea, the Pentagon’s frequent dispatches of nuclear-armed warplanes to the peninsula, and a military alliance with a high-tech Japan have nothing to do with Pyongyang’s fears.
Click here to read on in the old “Lobe Log,” the great foreign policy newsletter once edited by Jim Lobe.
