Portside

“We need to shift our priorities now, from war to human needs. And in the case of Korea, a peace agreement would actually allow all parties to do that.”

Due to their scale and provocative nature, the annual U.S.-South Korea combined exercises have long been a trigger point for heightened military and political tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

When the US entered the nuclear age, it did so recklessly. New research suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. The nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in 250,000 deaths. And now, Donald Trump is threatening to use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

Whether this week’s test is successful or not, the GMD system is still far from being able to provide reliable protection from a real-world missile threat.

The North Korean (DPRK) government disclosed on January 10 that it had delivered to the United States an important proposal to “create a peaceful climate on the Korean Peninsula". The US should negotiate with North Korea on its proposal to cancel nuclear tests in exchange for a US suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea.

Second guided-missile destroyer to join the USS John McCain; annual joint US-South Korean maneuvers that have so far included, fly-overs by B-52 bombers and mock bombing runs close to the North's border by two B-2 Stealth bombers that flew directly from the US. The exercises, appear to have provoked the latest escalation in tensions, already at near-record highs after the UN Security Council imposed new economic and diplomatic sanctions against Pyongyang last month.