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On 23 March 2023, the first day of Ramadan ul Mubarak for most of the Muslim countries and ‘Pakistan Day’ for Pakistanis, the South Korean and the US troops launched their largest amphibious landing drills in years involving a US amphibious assault ship. It was done a day after North Korea tested four long-range cruise missiles in protest of the South Korea-US largest military drills in the Indo-Pacific. The US news agency Reuters reported quoting the US officials last Thursday, “the core objective of these drills is to strengthen the United States’ extended deterrence in the region. So, the two countries have staged the US strategic assets in the region to enhance their joint corresponding capabilities against the North’s nuclear and missile threats.”
The USS Makin Island docked at a naval base in the southeastern port city of Busan a day before the amphibious landing drills to join the Ssangyong exercise, which kicked off on March 20 near Pohang on South Korea’s east coast and will last until April 3. About 12,000 sailors and marines from the two countries are taking part, as well as 30 warships, 70 aircraft and 50 amphibious assault vehicles.
Captain Tony Chavez, commanding officer of the Makin Island, has termed the North Korean cruise missiles launch were “escalatory” and that the combined exercises with South Korea are aimed at building “muscle memory” to respond to a crisis if needed. It does not matter where that threat is coming from. We are ensuring that we are able to amass forces to maintain maritime and air superiority and defend Northeast Asia or all of the Indo-Pacific region, Chavez told reporters aboard the ship.
The US military representative has said that the Makin Island carries 10 F-35 stealth fighters in addition to dozens of armoured vehicles. The ship’s welldeck, which can be flooded to provide direct access to the sea, allows it to launch and recover landing craft and other amphibious vehicles. The US has also claimed that they can take people on here [Makin Island] and put them on the ground to seize an area if we had to.
After a dozen wrong propagandas, the US is building up another malafide propaganda-based narrative to get its allies on board in the Indo-Pacific region to assemble its military might. The ongoing South Korea-US drills will be followed by live-firing drills in June 2023. Fears of another war are surrounding the region that may hit the Taiwan Strait engaging South Korea, Japan and Australia against North Korea and China. The Indo-Pacific region is likely to face the same fate as Iraq 20 years back. The unwarranted US propaganda destroyed not only one country but the region. A similar case is being built up now in the Indo-Pacific region that may offend the countries in the region.
The result will be the same as of other wars the US and its allies imposed on the ill-fated countries. Most recently in Ukraine. About $60 billion debt has been added to lately a prosperous country while nearly 100 Iraqis are still waiting for special US visas 20 years after the US invasion. They were the die-heart workers who applied for protective visas after working with US forces in Iraq but still remain in limbo. On the other hand, Ukraine is in limbo too despite heavy military shipments in aid from the US and the West.
Ukrainian propaganda is now using the theme of the “de-occupation of Crimea” to justify the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians. Despite the supplies of Western military aid and four mobilization waves, the Ukrainian armed forces continue to suffer heavy losses in manpower and military equipment, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for Kyiv to conceal this fact. During a visit to the USA, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Zaluzhnyy, revealed the real scale of losses in the Ukrainian army. Former Pentagon advisor Colonel D. MacGregor said that during his meeting with the US Secretary of Defense L. Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff M. Milley, Zaluzhniy had shared with them confidential information regarding the deaths and injuries of 257,000 Ukrainian servicemen.
Earlier, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, acknowledged on her Twitter page the enormous casualties among the Ukrainian Armed Forces, claiming more than 100,000 dead servicemen. Moreover, the Pentagon and Bundeswehr intelligence agencies have been forced to acknowledge the high casualties of the Ukrainian army.
Amid Russia’s systematic strikes against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, the Kiev authorities increasingly risk losing logistical channels for supplying their groups on the front line with NATO weapons. The country’s energy sector has already suffered significant damage, the effect of which will only increase. For example, in an interview with the Western press, Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed that about 50 per cent of the country’s energy facilities had been damaged.
The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, seek to maintain the level of morale required for the continuation of the resistance through populist rhetoric. In particular, M. Podolyak, advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office, said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would regain control of Crimea by the summer of 2023. However, by doing so, Kyiv officials are only trying to justify in the eyes of the population the future sacrifices that are allegedly necessary for the “restoration of territorial integrity”.
Meanwhile, such statements are lies and bluffs. All the situational “successes” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kharkiv Region and the right-bank part of Kherson Oblast are explained by the Ukrainian Armed Forces’s early abandonment of populated areas due to the need for extensive manoeuvring. The Ukrainian army is not capable of winning on the battlefield in a battle “on equal footing”.
