The Korean Peninsula faces a new round of tension driven by the joint air force drills conducted by the U.S. and South Korea starting from 31 October 2022 and North Korea’s response to this collective operation.

According to CNN report, more than 240 warplanes from the U.S. and South Korea participated in the drills named “Vigilant Storm”. Then, North Korea in response on early Wednesday warned that “the U.S. and ROK would pay the ‘most horrible price in history’ for any military action against Pyongyang”. North Korea on the same day fired 23 missiles - the largest number in a single day so far. Shortly thereafter, the country launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (the launch, according to the information released by the media, might have failed) and two short-range missiles. To react to North Korea’s missile launches, the U.S. and South Korea on Thursday declared to extend their joint air force drills till late this weekend, which was previously scheduled to end on Friday.

The U.S.-ROK joint military exercise has proved to be one of the key factors in leading to a quick surge of tension on the Korean Peninsula. The current situation on the Korean Peninsula can be a contrast to that around one and a half year ago. By then, the Biden Administration had just assumed office for about three to four months; and the security situation on the Korean Peninsula was relatively calm.

As attributed to the mediating role played by the former government of South Korea, the Biden Administration at the early stage had inherited the former U.S. government approach - in particular the position held by the Trump government during the second half of Trump’s tenure - in dealing with the DPRK and in moving forward the Korean Peninsula peace process by expressing the U.S. interest in continuing talks with North Korea and agreeing to seek denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula “step by step”.

In the meantime nevertheless, the U.S. and South Korea had held different views on the procedure of denuclearization - the former South Korean President had ever tried to get the U.S. and North Korea to agree on ending the Korean War status in the first place before taking the steps further toward the final stage of denuclearization, while the U.S. government officials had insisted to firstly achieve denuclearization before signing an “end of war” agreement with North Korea.

Meanwhile, from the North Korean perspective, the most important concern by then was that there was a need for the U.S. to end its hostile policies and posture toward North Korea in the first place in order to create a favourable atmosphere for further talks and then together for moving the denuclearization process to the next steps. As far as the U.S. cannot stop its hostile policies toward North Korea, signing an agreement on “ending the war” status didn’t carry much meaning.

The different positions held by the key stakeholders led to the slowdown of the Korean Peninsula peace talks. With South Korea entering a period of leadership transition, no further progress had been made before the former ROK President Moon left office.

After South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol assumed office in May 2022, in contrast to the former ROK government, apparently the Yoon government was ready to adopt a tougher approach in dealing with the DPRK nuclear issue. In August 2022, the U.S. and South Korea resumed their military drills, and had conducted the first joint military exercise from 22 August to 1 September in the surrounding areas of the Korean Peninsula ever since 2018. Therefore, generally since August 2022, the situation on the Korean Peninsula had been incrementally getting intense.

The U.S.-ROK joint military drills were claimed by some as a kind of routine operations of the two countries, partially carrying a purpose of deterring the advancement of North Korea’s nuclear programme. Nevertheless, from the North Korean perspective, the military drills of the U.S. and South Korea were taken as a serious threat to the country’s national security, due to that the site for carrying out the war games was so close to North Korea’s borders. For instance, the venue for conducting the U.S.-ROK joint live-fire drills in August 2022 was only 32 kilometers away from the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas.

Currently, against the background that the U.S. is in the process of implementing its Indo-Pacific strategy, managing the North Korean nuclear issue would likely become a more important concern for the United States. Therefore, we may assume that the series of U.S.-ROK joint military drills since August 2022, apart from serving a purpose of deterring North Korea’s ambition in advancing its nuclear programme, would also tend to meet an objective of enhancing the U.S.-ROK alliance relationship, and of consolidating the U.S. influence on the Korean Peninsula, and of further paving the way for the implementation of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy.

In addition to that, the U.S. also appeared to have an intention to deliberately show the U.S. strong position in dealing with the DPRK before the upcoming midterm election.

The interactions between the U.S. and North Korea as well as between the two Koreas in the past months have led to an escalation of the security situation on the Korean Peninsula; and new uncertainties have emerged. How likely the current situation would continue to be evolving, and how long it would take for the core stakeholders to jointly achieve new breakthroughs in moving forward the Peninsula peace process remain to be seen. The answers to these questions would be related to how likely the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy can be implemented in the coming years. Besides that, they would also somehow depend on the development of the domestic political situation of both the U.S. and South Korea in particular.