These days the Americans and their blind lackeys are misleading the world by making false and wrong arguments about the self-reliant defence capabilities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
A scrutiny of last year’s events, however, brings an immediate conclusion that their assertions are nothing but sophistry which reveals their vicious hostile policy towards the DPRK based on inveterate antipathy.
Reviewing the situation of the country in 2015 when a touchand-go critical moment arose in the Korean peninsula, the DPRK reiterated its proposal for a peace treaty to the US that is a party to the Armistice Agreement in order to remove the root cause of war and achieve lasting peace in the peninsula.
In the early 2016 it reaffirmed its principled stand that it will be faithful to the responsibility it assumes in the effort to ensure peace and security in the peninsula and the rest of the world. It also strongly demanded that the US and the south Korean authorities stop their dangerous rehearsals for aggressive war and other military provocations that would aggravate the tension in the Korean peninsula.
Ignoring the demand, however, the US drove the situation in the region into ever greater tension and instability throughout the year. Misleading the world opinion with a false claim that the DPRK was to blame for the worse tension in the peninsula, it escalated the campaign for sanctions and pressure in the international arena while making nuclear threats against Pyongyang. At its instigation the vassal forces and mouthpieces talked much about the so-called “threat from north Korea.” The Pentagon announced at the end of 2015 the 4D O-Plan aimed at launching a preemptive attack against the DPRK—for the underhand purpose of starting a nuclear war— and integrated it in the O-Plan 5015, a new war scenario. Soon it carried out the test of B61-12 which is a gravitational nuclear bomb to be used exclusively in its war against Pyongyang. These developments took to extremes the danger of a new nuclear arms race and a nuclear war in and around the peninsula.
Despite the reality, the US found fault with the DPRK’s launch of an artificial earth satellite which is execution of the lawful right of a sovereign state, to say nothing of its self-defence measures to cope with the former’s provocations.
The American military made a test launch of the ICBM Minuteman-3 on February 25, which they openly claimed was aimed at sending a signal of a “possible use of nuclear weapons against north Korea.” Earlier on February 18, the White House formally brought into effect the “2016 act on stricter sanctions and policy towards north Korea” in order to stifle the DPRK economically. On March 3, it, abusing the UN Security Council, cooked up Resolution No. 2270 on sanctions against the DPRK, which was a grave violation of the UN Charter and international laws. Still, it felt little satisfied, for it announced measures of its own for sanctions.
The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle 16 joint military rehearsals from March 7 to April 30 last year are a clear indication of the extent of the Americans’ moves to start a nuclear war against Pyongyang. For those rehearsals they mobilized a huge force including 27 000 GIs, 300 000 puppet south Korean troops and armies of their vassal nations, the nuclearpowered aircraft carrier Stenisled target force, B-52, B-2 and all other kinds of equipment for nuclear war—over three times larger forces than those hurled into the previous year’s exercises. In the earlier years the Pentagon conducted in top secret different sorts of special drills for removal of the DPRK leadership and destruction of its system, but in 2016 it went so far as to make it open that it was planning to get rid of the Korean leadership. On April 26 when the joint exercises reached the zenith, Obama blasted that “we can obviously destroy north Korea with weapons,” thus driving the situation in the Korean peninsula swiftly to the brink of war. The 55 days when the DPRK as one party and the US and its followers as the opponents were fiercely confronted was little different from wartime, a time of confrontation between nuclear powers accompanied by demonstration of military capabilities.
The moves of the US military for war reached extremes with the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint exercise from August 22 to September 2, which was the largest in its history. A tremendous force of aggression conducted smokereeking games on the land, in the sky and sea with the mobilization of more than 30 000 GIs and strategic means of war like B-1B and B-2A strategic bombers deployed in the forward base in the Guam. Due to the drills the situation was on the doorstep of war. Besides, the US carried out different names of anti-DPRK war games like the Vigilant Ace by mobilizing the Japanese Selfdefence Force and the puppet south Korean army—as many as 40 exercises throughout the year 2016.
Action is inevitably followed by reaction. The American moves for war and nuclear blackmail pushed the DPRK steadfastly to the effort to build up its war deterrent and take more offensive and stronger measures in succession.
On January 6 last year Pyongyang successfully carried out the first H-bomb test and a nuclear warhead blasting test in September. And in August it made a stride in developing its nuclear force up to an advanced level by succeeding in a higherlevel underwater launch test of ballistic missile from a strategic submarine. The air and sea routes in the Pacific region used by the Americans in the past for aggression of the Korean peninsula are now to be followed by the retaliatory weapons of the DPRK aimed at the lifeline of the US. With this the DPRK-US confrontation has changed into a completely different strategic structure.
The incomparably strengthened war deterrent of the DPRK demonstrated its power during the enemy’s joint military exercises of all names in the Korean peninsula and the surrounding waters. It is truly right for the DPRK to choose the road of selfreliant defence to defend its own state and system against the constant threat of nuclear war. The country is determined to crown its cause with victory by dint of selfreliant defence, the cause which it started and has pursued with its own efforts.
Referring to this fact, American experts of the Korean studies say: The policy of pushing ahead with the nuclear buildup and economic construction simultaneously has turned out successful in reality. In the DPRK the national economy is getting more and more vitality thanks to the line of attaching importance to sci-tech development in economic construction, and the cultural sector is also making radical progress. The strategic position of the DPRK in Northeast Asia has changed completely.
It is high time the US had a proper view of the completely different strategic position of the DPRK and behave itself, shaking off its congenital antipathy against the latter. It would be wise for the White House to be cautious and prudent regarding matters of the DPRK’s prestige and security.
An article by Kim Yong Un
