Image via Wikipedia Military exercises between the United States and South Korea were scheduled for last July, but they were postponed to this weekend. However, the timing of the new drills could not be worse. The artillery exchange on Monday that rocked the tense peace between North and South Korea was ignited by military training on Yeonpyeong Island, about 8 miles from the North Korean shore. Under threats of more attacks from both sides, additional military exercises, especially those including the United States could push the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.
“North Korea’s state-run news agency lashed out at South Korean and American plans to hold a joint training exercise on Sunday in Yellow Sea waters near the island,” according to the New York Times. “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage war exercises targeted against” the North, the dispatch warned.”
The last war between North and South Korea, (1950 and 1953), was the result of an ally imposed division of the peninsula along the 38th parallel, following the surrender of Japan in World War II. The Korean War, technically called a police action by the United States, also formed a political line between the ideological values of the East and West during the birth of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The Korea’s have had tense relations ever since.
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