Ever since 1945, Korea has played a central role in U.S. Pacific theater strategy. The principal target of that strategy was initially the Soviet Union, but since 1949–1950 China has taken its place. The theater was renamed the “Indo-Pacific” in 2018, but this extension was primarily to outflank China. While the division of the world into two major oceanic theaters was a necessary organizational construction for a traditional seapower, it should not obscure the global underpinning of U.S. strategy. The United States is a global empire and all parts of the world, and all the countries in it—friend, nonaligned or foe—are interconnected. The four main U.S. enemies at the moment, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are joined together in Eurasia. The struggle can be conceptualized as the United States deploying two giant oceanic pincers to contain, subjugate, and dismember Eurasia, a replay of the debate between Alfred Mahan and Halford Mackinder for our times. Thus, we have seen South Korea being used to supply artillery shells to Ukraine and to host European militaries either bilaterally, or via the Asian NATO/UNC. 

　　All countries are interconnected through geopolitics. Korea’s position in this giant mechanism is due to its role as a linchpin of U.S.-China strategy in Northeast Asia, and thus inevitably throughout the Indo-Pacific theater, and further into the global struggle between U.S. imperialism and the emerging multipolar world. 

　　From: Monthly Review 2024 76 (3) 

　　Editor: Wang Yi