 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Commander Bharadwaj and we'll discuss the issue of the standoff in the Korean Peninsula. Particularly the Armada which is supposed to be streaming towards Korea and also the attendant tensions. How do you see this? Do you think there is a possibility of war now over the Korean Peninsula? I don't think there will be an immediate war at the moment because looking at the past history, America never enters a place or never enters a country which has got nuclear weapons. It's military requirement. It will first make sure that nuclear weapons are removed then enter that particular region. It did that to Saddam Hussein. It used the United Nations resolutions to send their inspectors in Iraq and see to it that all nuclear, any traces of nuclear weapons were removed if at all they were there. Even the chemical weapons were removed from Iraq before their military could move in. Their military would never take a chance of entering a country which is known to have nuclear weapons. So America will do everything first to make sure that North Korea is denuclearized. It would be through sanctions. It will be through United Nations efforts. It will be by applying pressure on China. So it will do all sorts of things. So war is a little far away at the moment. It may happen at the later stages once North Korea is absolutely denuclearized. But American military will never take a chance of moving to North Korea till the time it has nuclear weapons. Ever since the end of the Cold War, America has used North Korea as a punching bag. In 1990s, much before Bush Senior actually went into Iraq, North Korea became a hot issue. One was expecting that there could be a war. America could launch missiles onto North Korea anytime. But somehow they forgot North Korea for a little while and they shifted their attention to Iraq. This is 1990s George Bush Senior. This is 1990s George Bush Senior. Of course after that, when Clinton came in, he had an agreement with North Korea to not promote his nuclear program further. This is 1994. This is 1994 agreement which was there. But then with Bush Junior coming in, again in 2002, then he included North Korea into the axis of evil. So there again the tension started building up. Then the North Korea again tested nuclear weapons in 2006 and then again in 2009. So the tensions were building up all this while. But the issue is that why is North Korea doing this? North Korea is doing this because it feels threatened. It feels threatened because after the First World War, I am sorry, after the Second World War, it was the first country which again US concentrated upon. Yeah, the Korean War in the 1950s to the 1950s. So there it was heavily bombed. North Koreans had to face heavy bombing from Americans. Something like 6,35,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Koreans. Yeah, 635,000 tons of bombs and a lot of it was napalm. They really burnt North Korea and it's estimated 20-30% North Koreans died in this bombardment. That's the figure. Americans have agreed it's 20% because that's a figure which Curtis LeMay, the Joint Chief of Staff at some point, he had mentioned this figure and that's a widely accepted figure. So that's a very one out of five. It's a very high number. And ever since then the North Koreans actually have not attacked any other country till now. It's an interesting point that you're raising that North Korea is supposed to be mad, supposed to be unstable, supposed to be volatile and it's having nuclear bombs. Well, Americans have all this while, have had the right to bomb any country they want, invade any country they want and if you see the axis of evil list, they have actually invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein, they have invaded Libya, killed Radhafi and North Korea is always very much on that list. You know, North Koreans are also afraid. One aspect is that they're afraid that Americans may attack them and bomb them to stone age, which they have been doing to other countries. The other aspect is that once they're being asked to denuclearize, they feel that once they denuclearize, the Americans are going to come back with much more venom on them, just as they did against Gaddafi. You know, they laud Gaddafi into giving up his nuclear program. First they imposed sanctions on Gaddafi and then they said if you give up your nuclear program, then we're going to remove the sanctions. Gaddafi got lauded into the game. Then they invited him to G8 Summit in 2009, shook hands with him. He gave up his nuclear programs, but after two years what happened to Gaddafi and what happened to Libya? The whole nation was destroyed. Gaddafi of course was, you know, killed two pieces. So similar thing they did against Saddam Hussein. But do you still think there is a possibility of the Russians, the Chinese and the Americans clashing over Korea as it happened in 1950? You were talking about the aircraft carrier, also other forces which are moving it from the American side. So how do you look at this formation which is coming into the Korean Peninsula or at least in the sea? You know, one change which has occurred since the Russians entered Syria recently has been that American hegemony is starting to be challenged at some levels. Although Americans are moving into the Korean Peninsula with their aircraft carrier and also with, you know, today's news report suggests that their nuclear submarine, Michigan, is also moving into the Peninsula. So they have their entire navy over there. But now the Russians and the Chinese navy are also pretty large to challenge the Americans. And the Russians are no longer sitting in their backyard. They have started coming out now and challenging them. Any Korean Peninsula is Russian backyard. Lani Vostok is pretty close to the Korean border. Yes. So they've also started putting their ground troops there now. Fearing that if the situation escalates. The other aspect is that, you know, why America has been doing all these things? Largely because the international community, you know, which speaks against these issues, which largely comes from the European Union. You know, I'm not talking of Britain which is already out and it would never have done that. But larger European Union which have been championing human rights issues. It has never raised the, you know, violation of human rights by American forces. For some reason because of their elite networks which work within the transatlantic world. Well, in France itself has invaded various countries in Africa and it's never raised human rights violations over there. They've never raised human rights violations vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia. What is doing it in Yemen? So their human rights have been extremely, shall we say, self-centered. It only for their benefit, not other one. And it is very selective and now, you know, now with the growing right-wing movement, ideological movements I would say, you will see more and more of, you know, support that America would gather for its action. But let's come back to Korea. North Korea is a nuclear power today. It's probably something like anything between 25 to 30 could be even up to 40 nuclear bombs. It has designs. It cannot hit the United States but it certainly can hit Japan and South Korea. Seoul is within the artillery range of North Korean cannons. It's only 50 kilometers, that's within range. This is a disaster for the peninsula and Japan if the war breaks out over there. Do you think the Americans are not aware of the fact or do you think that it still would like to do brinkmanship or this is Trump's flexing of muscles believing that North Korea will back down and therefore he will have won a quote-unquote huge victory? You know a lot. One looks at it, you know, from nationalistic point of views of the South Koreans and of the Japanese. One is intrigued. Japan has been the victim of American nuclear bombing. Yet one does not see, you know, that kind of a resistance against American moves to nuclearize the whole region. To further nuclearize the region. Similarly, South Koreans, you know, if at all if the North Koreans get attacked, then the attack is actually going to be on their people with whom they have family ties. So why should it happen that they go in to support the American agenda in the region, which is an extra regional, extra territorial power in that region? Now this actually is explained a lot by the kind of networks, the elite networks which America has been able to form with all these countries. Now these elite networks are the ones which control the media over there. These elite networks control the business and also they have a large presence within their military establishments. Now once these elite networks are able to serve not their own nationalist interests but the interests of the American strategic aims in the region, then the problem actually starts. So somewhere down the line, these elite networks till the time they are broken, the world will continue to witness the same kind of mayhem which we've been witnessing, you know, for the last 100 years, ever since the first world war. This entire violence, you know, has been going unabated. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Be with us for future episodes of NewsClick.