U.S. Military “War Games” Against North Korea Justified as “Defense Measure” While North Korea Has Never Invaded, Bombed, or Occupied Any Country

© WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images

By ANSWER Coalition Indiana

Republished from ANSWER Coalition’s website.

As the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) celebrated the 111th anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 08, the annual “war games” held jointly by the U.S. and South Korean armed forces--the latter of which are under the command of the U.S. except “in times of peace”--began. The “exercises” or “games” have been a standard feature of U.S. policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) for more than half a century now to prepare for and assess the U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea, or South Korea) military alliance’s readiness to attack and invade the DPRK. 

The “games,” conducted by the Combined Forces Command, have recently been known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, the former of which involved simulated war games and the later of which was “the peninsula-wide training portion of the drill.” Foal Eagle entailed field combat training with upwards of 500,000 south Korean soldiers shooting blanks across the 38th parallel, and over the last two decades have featured anti-submarine attacks and maritime exercises, including amphibious landings, and aircraft carriers with bombers flying around the DPRK’s air space. They “simulate” incursions, large-scale invasions, the bombing of the DPRK, and even the “decapitation” of the country’s leadership. 

What the U.S. calls “war games” are in reality what the DPRK calls them: war rehearsals. The government and people in the DPRK have no way of knowing if the “exercise” will be an attack or invasion. The DPRK has reasonably called the games a form of “psychological warfare.”

The historic April 27, 2018 inter-Korean summit that produced the Panmunjom Declaration, served as the basis for the first Kim-Trump summit in Singapore on June 12 the same year. This was the first time the leaders of the two countries ever met face to face. Trump announced that the Foal Eagle war exercises would be suspended because they were too costly and a barrier to the peace process. They cancelled several war exercises and modified others by scaling them back and holding them only as simulations. Yet in 2019, after the US-DPRK Hanoi Summit was sabotaged by John Bolton, the U.S. announced a new round of war exercises called The Dong Maeng, which have generally not included outdoor drills. 

Trump’s motivations for establishing peaceful relations with the DPRK were not in any way based on his politics or ideology, but on his personal interests and ego. He wanted to be remembered not as the President who was impeached but the President that ended the Korean War. It was the war hawks within his own administration and Congress--both Democrats and Republicans--the prevented this from happening. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act passed in congress restricted the reduction of active-duty troops in South Korea below 22,000 unless James “Mad Dog” Mattis--then Trump’s Secretary of Defense--certifies that it would not harm the interests of the U.S. or its allies. 

This year’s war preparations are part of a Combined Command Post Training that are primarily computer simulated and include minimal troops, outdoor activities, and equipment because of COVID-19.

The Colonial Status of South Korea Limits President Moon and his Party from pursuing peaceful reunification

President Moon and Chairman Kim have friendly relations, but their inability to implement the Panmunjom Declaration is largely due to U.S. and U.N. sanctions against the DPRK, which prevent even railway travel or cargo to pass through the North to get to China. It also prevents the rehabilitation of joint enterprises in the Kaesong Industrial Park, an inter-Korean economic zone just across the border of North Korea that was established in 2002 and shut down in 2016 by the previous President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached and is currently imprisoned on corruption charges. Even during the Park’s existence, its potential was hampered by U.S. sanctions, which prevented the South from bringing computers to the North. Phone calls were expensive because they had to be routed through Japan.

President Moon came to power from the 2016 Candlelight Movement that overthrew President Park. His popularity is partly due to his efforts to return to inter-Korean cooperation and reunification, and his approval ratings decline or increase depending on the state of this cooperation. The Democratic Party of Korea he represents won a landslide victory in the 2020 legislative elections. Yet the colonial status of South Korea constrains his ability to determine and lead the process of peaceful reunification. 

One of President Moon’s goals is to take back control of the country’s armed forces, which are under the command of the US Forces Korea (USFK). He announced this in 2017 and there are several steps that he needs to take to do so, namely by “proving” the country’s ability to maintain its own armed forces without the U.S. In this sense, the scaled-back war preparations could delay that process. 

On March 11, South Korea’s Reunification Minister Lee In-young emphasized the need to maintain “a basic level” of joint exercises in order to regain operational control over the military. Yonhap, a South Korean news outlet, reported that Lee, in an interview with local media, “pointed out the need to keep the joint exercises to ‘a basic level at the least’ for Seoul's efforts to retake wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from Washington but stressed that the exercises have been scaled-back and kept to a minimum.”

Relatedly, the Biden administration is continuing the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue--or Quad--an informal pact between the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia.Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Adviser, affirmed that the administration will strengthen the quad, which held its first military exercise--against China--in November 2020. Part of the expansion would include South Korea, which has thus far not committed to anything. Chung Eui-yong, the recently appointed Foreign Minister, is hesitant to get involved in an anti-China alliance, given that China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. 

The DPRK’s calibrated response

Also on March 11, USFK Commander Gen. Robert Abrams said that the North continues to pose a threat to the South and that later this year the U.S. will deploy additional anti-ballistic missile capabilities.

That same day, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Katsunobu Katō, reasserted that Japan owns and will defend by force Tok Island, which is historically part of the Korean nation. Japan conquered the island during its colonization of Korea, plundering it for resources. The DPRK highlighted this instead of the war games in its main newspaper.

Thus far, the DPRK has not responded. They continue to abide by the Singapore Summit agreement. Even Gen. Abrams noted in a statement to the House Armed Services Committee that the DPRK, “hasn’t launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile since 2017. There have been no intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or nuclear tests since 2017, all to say that the chance of miscalculation or mistake continues to be low, and armistice conditions continue to remain steady.”

The U.S. War against Korea only ended in an armistice on July 27, 1953, and the DPRK, progressive forces in the south and abroad, have been calling for a formal end to the Korean War that, on June 25, will be 71 years running. The absence of a peace treaty legitimizes the U.S.’s ongoing occupation of South Korea and its ability to threaten to and resume the active military war at any moment. 

The U.S. has around 28,000 soldiers occupying the southern half of the peninsula and additional 50,000 troops stationed across the East Sea in Japan. The Combined Forces Command has, according to its website, “operational control over more than 600,000 active-duty military personnel of all services, of both countries. In wartime, augmentation could include some 3.5 million ROK reservists as well as additional U.S. forces deployed from outside the ROK. If North Korea attacked, the CFC would provide a coordinated defense through its Air, Ground, Naval and Combined Marine Forces Component Commands and the Combined Unconventional Warfare Task Force. In-country and augmentation U.S. forces would be provided to the CFC for employment by the respective combat component.”

Biden’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was a critic of Trump’s rapprochement with the DPRK. Biden himself was highly critical of Trump’s attempts to de-escalate tensions and move toward normalizing U.S. relations with the DPRK, even calling Chairman Kim a “thug.” Last month, in an interview with Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC, Blinken said, “the first thing we’re going to do is to review the policy across the board to look at what tools we have, including additional sanctions, including especially additional coordination and cooperation with allies and partners, but also to look at diplomatic incentives. So once we do that, we’ll be able to tell you how we plan to move forward.” We don’t know what a comprehensive policy re-examination will entail, but it is definitely not going to be a continuation of Trump’s policy. 

In response to a question about whether or not it’s “time to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power” and if “denuclearizing North Korea beyond any aspiration at this stage, especially because they have made so many advances in the last four years,” he said the DPRK’s arsenal “is a problem, a bad problem that has gotten worse over time.  And I would be the first to acknowledge that it’s a problem that’s gotten worse across administrations.”

Blinken’s first overseas trip will be to Japan and South Korea on March 15-18, where he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet with Foreign Minister Chung and Minister of Defense Suh Wook. Blinken earlier said that China was the largest geo-political obstacle to address, and its likely the meeting will focus on bringing South Korea into the Quad as well as the administration’s approach to the “denuclearization” of the DPRK. Of course, the fact that the U.S. is the world’s largest nuclear power and the only country to have used them in a war, is not a pressing concern or even a factor.

The DPRK’s policy is consistent. They want a stable peace regime, the lifting of sanctions, and the ability to determine their own destiny and to pursue socialist development. Unlike the U.S., they’ve never threatened to pre-emptively strike another country. They consistently affirm that they won’t use nuclear weapons unless they’re forced to. In a January meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman Kim reaffirmed that he remains open to talking with the U.S. but that they have no choice but to develop their military and nuclear capacities because of U.S. aggression.

That the DPRK hasn’t yet responded by launching a missile or even a prominent denunciation of the war exercises is a testament to their highly intentional and measured considerations of how to respond. This is the exact opposite of how the U.S. would respond. What would the U.S. do if the DPRK and Russia or any two countries were conducting “war games” along its border to simulate the decapitation of the government’s leadership, a bombing campaign, or a maritime or ground invasion? 

The Moon government too is trying to work within its constraints to pursue an end to the U.S. War against Korea. In a New Year address, President Moon said that Biden should talk with the DPRK and build on the progress made during Trump’s last years in office. The U.S. is supposedly occupying South Korea to defend its “ally” from the “threat from the north.” The fact that the South’s President--and the general population--want peaceful relations with their fellow Koreans in the north, some of whom are family members that haven’t seen each other in 70 years, makes it clear that this is a cover story for the real reason the U.S. wants to occupy South Korea: to pressure and overthrow the DPRK’s government and to prevent friendly relations amongst East Asian nations that, if allowed to blossom, would severely threaten the U.S. government’s “great power rivalry” with the People’s Republic of China.

The Colonial Gaze in Overdrive: The Latest Rumors and Allegations About the DPRK

Photo: KIM WON-JIN / Contributor / Getty Images

By Derek R. Ford

After weeks of wild speculation about his health, which began as rumors that he was undergoing surgery and escalated into claims that he had in fact died, Chairman Kim Jong Un visually appeared in the media at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new fertilizer plant. It was yet another case of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK, or North Korea) magical ability to raise someone from the dead.

All of the think tank experts and media outlets are now struggling to confirm their initial theory by comparing the movement of Chairman Kim’s legs before his “disappearance” and during the ceremony and by ruminating on a “mysterious mark” on his wrist.

Lest the rumors die, on May 03 the South Korean military reported that four bullets fired from the north hit the wall of a South Korean guard post along the Demilitarized Zone. In response, troops in the south fired 20 warning shots.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said the shots were unintentional, as conditions were foggy and the shots came when Korean People’s Army soldiers typically change shifts and check firearms. US Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo agreed with the assessment. Given the highly sensitive nature of the situation, the DPRK hasn’t formally responded at this point, and there hasn’t actually been any evidence confirming that the shots came from the north, let alone from the Korean People’s Army.

Despite this, speculation abounds that it was intentional. The most quoted source is Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, who told Reuters: “Yesterday, Kim was trying to show he is perfectly healthy, and today, Kim is trying to mute all kinds of speculation that he may not have full control over the military.”

Dr. Choi’s hypothesis might make sense if the DPRK’s military consisted of a few guys with guns. Maybe then it could be an assertion of control. But the country has an incredibly sophisticated military, and firing four rounds of ammunition isn’t much of a statement.

It might make sense if the DPRK had absolutely anything to gain from such an action. They don’t. In fact, such an action could only hurt them insofar as it is treated as a “provocative” action by the US. Whenever the DPRK does basically anything, from testing missiles to launching communications satellites, they’re quickly and routinely—and uniquely—condemned. This is an unjust situation, but one of which the North’s leadership is acutely aware. And now the United Nations Command is investigating to determine whether the shots violated the armistice agreement signed in 1953 to end—or pause—the US-led war against Korea.

It might make sense if the DPRK was looking to antagonize their fellow Koreans in the south. But that’s not the case. In April 2018, Chairman Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed the historic Panmunjom Declaration, the second point of which was to eliminate military tensions. Since then, the two states have made tremendous strides in doing so by removing landmines and dismantling guard posts. US war exercises have continued, although they have been significantly scaled back.

If you’re not visible, you don’t exist

More problematic with Choi’s assertion, however, one that accords with the rumors of Chairman Kim’s death, is the idea that Chairman Kim and the DPRK have something to “prove” to the West. The logic and force of the West’s colonial gaze is in full force here. Chairman Kim is injured or dead simply because he isn’t visible to the West, and the longer he isn’t visible the more likely it is he is dead. Now he’s “trying to show us” he has control of the military.

The colonialist framework holds that the colonized subject exists only insofar as they’re recognized by the colonizing power. This is the framework under which it’s logical for the colonizer to “discover” a land inhabited by people for centuries. After “discovery,” colonialism demands the constant visibility and transparency of the colonized. Any retreat from visibility into opacity is an affront to the colonial power. This explains the constant outrage from the West that the DPRK is “shrouded in secrecy” or a “hermit kingdom: because the West can’t have unfettered access, because they have to deal with assertions of national sovereignty, because they can’t send in weapons inspectors at the will.

The US is, for obvious reason, a significant factor in North Korea’s actions and policies. But as I heard Ri Ki Ho, representative of the DPRK’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in NYC, say at the 2019 Global Peace Forum on Korea: “we’re not obsessed with the US.”

Ri was speaking in the context of the nuclear talks between the US and DPRK, saying that whatever the US did or didn’t do, the DPRK would continue along the path it set forward. It makes perfect sense, but only if we divorce ourselves from the colonialist gaze.

My own take is that the rumors and accusations are primarily intended to halt inter-Korean cooperation. Thus, it’s not a coincidence that the rumors of Chairman Kim’s health coincided with the April 15 legislative elections in South Korea. The ruling Democratic Party and its allied Platform Party (which might be absorbed within the DPK) won a resounding victory, capturing 180 out of the 300 available seats in the National Assembly. The far-right, represented by the Unified Future Party, performed worse than they had in 60 years.

The election was partly a referendum on the Moon government’s engagement with the DPRK, which has encountered obstacle after obstacle primarily in the form of US sanctions and the domination of the US over South Korea’s military. The result was a clear affirmation of engagement, peace, and reunification with their fellow Korean people in the north.

The rumors and accusations, then, can be seen as an attempt to disorient and disillusion the hopes of the South Korean people, and to present these aspirations within Korea as an impossibility to the people of the world. They have the added benefit of obstructing any remaining possibility of a rapprochement between the US and DPRK under the Trump administration. Further, depending on the UNC findings, the accusations of gunfire may result in still more sanctions or something even worse.

Regardless of whatever rumors are flying, whatever allegations are in the air, whatever demonization campaign is circulating, the refrain of everyone interested in peace and justice is the same: The Korean people—in the southern and northern parts of the peninsula and in the diaspora—have the rights to peace, liberation, and self-determination, and we will do whatever we can to help them realize those rights.

Derek R. Ford is an educator and organizer, whose latest book is Politics and Pedagogy in the “Post-Truth” Era (Bloomsbury, 2019).

Still Fighting for Korea’s Liberation: An Interview with Ahn Hak-sop

By Derek R. Ford

Editor’s Note: Ahn Hak-sop was an officer in the Korean People’s Army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) during the Korean War. In 1952, he was captured by the United States and its proxy forces while on his way to a meeting in the southern part of Korea. He served decades as an unconverted political prisoner before finally winning release in 1995. Today, he is still active as a peace and reunification activist in the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea). Liberation School interviewed Mr. Ahn in November 2019 at a peace church in the Civilian Control Zone just south of the 38th parallel that divides the Korean peninsula. This interview was conducted by Derek Ford, Hampton Institute’s Education Dept chair, for Liberation School.

Thank you so much for speaking with us today, Mr. Ahn. It’s wonderful to see you again. To begin, can you tell us about how you got involved with the Korean struggle for peace, independence, and reunification?

My birth town is Ganghwa Island. I was born in a poor household, in the era of Japanese imperialism. My family was Confuscianist. I went to elementary school and was taught an imperialist education. They didn’t teach me that Korea was a colony. I found that out in second grade. Through my experiences in the imperialist education, I found out that Korea was not independent, and since that time the feeling of anti-imperialism grew in my mind. At the time of liberation from Japanese imperialism, I was in hiding because of anti-imperialist activism, and that is where I met the resistance forces. On the afternoon of August 15, I knew that I was liberated from Japanese imperialism.

What was your understanding of US imperialism at that time?

At first, I thought the US Army was a liberation army. But soon General MacArthur referred to the US as an occupying army. There was no word of liberation, only occupation; so I was suspicious, but only partly so. Although I was young, the whole nation was full with division between the rule of the US and Soviets. In September of 1945, Koreans went out to greet the US Army, but the US Army shot at them. After the Moscow Committee, the US Army said explicitly that they were there to block the Soviet Union. But in 1948, the Soviet Union withdrew all of their troops. But the US Army didn’t withdraw.

In almost every town, there was a People’s Committee for self-rule, but the US Army crushed the People’s Committees with tanks and soldiers. There was a lot of resistance and revolt at that time.

On August 8, 1947, when I was returning home with a colleague from a meeting to prepare a celebration for the liberation, someone shot at us, and my colleague was wounded and arrested. I survived and ran away and went underground to Kaesong, which was in the northern part of the peninsula, although there was no 38th parallel at that time. While I was in Kaesong, I went to engineering school. The South Korean police went to school to arrest me, but the school protected me.

What happened after that, during the war?

During the war, I enlisted in the Korean People’s Army, but the school delayed my admittance. I was sick, and so I wasn’t able to fight when I finally joined. I served in intelligence gathering. The KPA sent me to the South in 1952 as an intelligence officer, where I was arrested. In early April of 1952, I was going to a meeting of the Workers’ Party in the district of Kangwondo. I was observed on my way there and arrested.

While I was in jail, I had a lot of obstacles to overcome. There was spying and torture for 42 years. There was pressure to convert from Juche ideology into capitalism beginning in 1956.

First they tried to make theoretical arguments against the DPRK. But they couldn’t defend their beliefs to me. After that, they tried to bribe me with property. After that, there was torture. There is a small place in the jail, and they would throw water in the room in the winter. They take all of your clothes and bedding. I tried to survive. So I ran and exercised to keep my body warm. But I couldn’t last forever. I became unconscious, and they dragged my body out to keep me alive. There were other forms of torture. I could overcome all of this. What was most painful was when the police brought my family, my mother and brother to the prison.

When and how were you finally released?

On August 15, 1995 I was released from jail. They didn’t want to do it, but they had to release me because of the Geneva Convention. They should have released me in 1953. At that time, I should have been sent to the DPRK, but the US and South Korea didn’t do that. They said I was a spy, and so I didn’t fall under the convention, which they said only applied to battleground soldiers, not information operatives.

I tried to litigate for many years, and the army and prison did everything they could do to block the law. I couldn’t send any letters or meet with anyone. I finally got one letter out, however, and human rights lawyers took up my case. The government was forced to justify my detention, and there was no justification. They had to release me.

Two other prisoners came out of jail with me. Two of them went to the DPRK in 2000 after the June 15 Declaration. Those comrades went to the North because they thought that shortly there would be free movement between the two states. They went to the North to study and thought they would come back later.

Why did you stay in the South?

I remained in the South by my own choice. There are three reasons. First, I thought it was a temporary situation. Second, there were young progressive people here in the South, and they asked me to stay. They said, “If the unconverted prisoners go the North, we will lose the center of the struggle.” It became very important for me to stay. The third reason is that Korea is now divided, and the US occupies the southern part. We have to keep struggling here for the withdrawal of US army, the peace treaty, and peaceful reunification. I decided to stay here to fight for these goals. In 1952, I came here to liberate the southern half of the peninsula, and I need to stay here and continue that struggle.

What has your life been like since release?

The government required me to have one guaranteed supervisor when I was released, so if there was any problem with me they could hold them accountable. I tore up the paper and said, “I will not give you a hostage.”

Still, there are security police who follow me. Whenever there is a problem with the North and South, they raid my house and stand guard outside my property. One time at a demonstration, conservative forces attacked me. The police did nothing to protect me.

I’d like to explain more about the Security Surveillance Act, which mandates that police watch former political prisoners. Every week or every other week, the police come to my house and ask about my activities, who has visited my house, and so on. Once every other month I need to report to them about what I did, who I met, and who visited me. Every two years I need to go to court. However, I don’t report to them or go to court. That is their law, and it’s unjust.

It’s not easy to continue fighting this law. I can’t leave the country. I can’t visit my hometown. But I’ve lived my whole life for reunification and anti-imperialism, and I’d like to live the rest of my life for that.

Eyewitness North Korea: An American's Journey to the DPRK before the Travel Ban

By Derek R. Ford

On August 1, Rex Tillerson announced that beginning in one month the U.S. government would be banning its citizens from traveling to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea). A few days later, I boarded an Air Koryo plane and landed in that country for a fact-finding and peace delegation. There were a total of five of us, all traveling on U.S. passports. Call us skeptical, but we didn't buy that the Trump administration was acting in our best interests, let alone acting in the name of peace and justice. Indeed, as soon as we landed the hegemonic U.S. narrative about the country began to crumble. Even though I had previously been highly critical of the presentation of the country we have been exposed to our entire lives, I couldn't quite anticipate just how different the reality actually is. And it wasn't only life in the country that was radically different, but also my experience as U.S. citizen traveling there.

I have to begin with this latter aspect, because the propaganda against the DPRK is so total, so all-encompassing, that it can make one's actual experience be dismissed in advance. If one's on-the-ground observations differ in any way from the dominant narrative, then it is because one only observed a highly orchestrated and carefully curated propaganda show.

Tourism in the DPRK is a regulated industry, and there are two very good reasons for this. For one, the U.S. has for decades tried to send spies and agitators into the country to organize destabilization campaigns. The National Endowment for Democracy has a public policy of trying to push propaganda into the country and foster a dissident movement. For two, given the destruction wrought by Western tourists throughout the world, there is a good argument to be had that Westerners should be carefully policed and monitored on their visits. As a sovereign and indigenous nation, the DPRK has a right to control who enters its country and on what conditions, and this should be respected.

This, however, wasn't my experience at all. Not once did I ever feel restricted or policed. During my time there I was free to speak with anyone and to go anywhere. I engaged in numerous spontaneous conversations with people while eating in restaurants, hiking in the wilderness, and walking on the streets. Even passing through immigration and customs was a breeze-much easier than the U.S. They didn't search our phones or laptops. (Upon return, however, one member of our delegation was detained by U.S. customs agents for three hours, and had his phone and computer searched).

Nor was I only shown the best and brightest spots of the country. I spent about as much time in Pyongyang as I did in the countryside, and over the trip we spent hours driving around the country. My Korean friends were very proud of everything in their country, from the new high rises in cities to the old housing structures in the countryside. Our main hotel, the Raknang Guesthouse, had all the amenities of a five-star hotel in any U.S. city, but at another hotel we only had a few hours of hot water each day, and the air conditioning cut in and out. It's true that there is a marked difference between the city and countryside, but that isn't unique to the DPRK. That's true for everywhere, including here in the U.S. I live in rural Indiana, and there is a huge contrast between the infrastructure in my town and that of Indianapolis.

At no point in our trip did we feel unsafe or threatened. As it turns out, if you don't maliciously break any laws, the DPRK is a nice place to visit.

"Just try to understand where we are coming from, and make up your own mind"

We were hosted by Dawn Media, a new media group in the country that is separate from both the state and the ruling party. They aren't a tour company, so the only official tour guides we interacted with were at museums, special events, and the demilitarized zone.

If the official tours in the country are intended to be propaganda shows, then the tour industry is doing a terrible job. And here I have to admit my own prejudices as I embarked on my trip, for I was surprised at how objective and reasonable the tour guides were.

When we approached the final checkpoint before the demilitarized zone we met a soldier who would escort us to the border. Before we left, he told us: "What I am going to show you and tell you is what happened to us. I am going to tell you our perspective. Just try to understand where we are coming from, and make up your own mind."

It was the same at the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities. There, our guide said, "We ask that you try to put yourself in our shoes."

Having arrived in the country just days after the travel ban was announced, many people were surprised to learn we were from the U.S. And when one young woman who had recently graduated from the foreign language university found out where we were from, she told us why she was upset about the ban. "It is important for people to see so that they know," she said. "They can make up their own minds about our country."

Not once on our trip did anyone-a tour guide, our hosts, our friends-tell us that we had to agree with what we were told.

And not once were we treated with any disrespect or hostility. And this was truly remarkable. Even when we met Jong Gun-Song, a 72-year-old survivor of the Sinchon massacre. He was just three when U.S. soldiers threw him and about 400 other children into a warehouse, where they were left in the cold without food or water for one week before the soldiers poured gasoline through the vents and started a fire. Jong was tucked away in a corner, and although he fell into a coma from the smoke, he awoke days later. It would have been quite understandable if this man refused to speak with us or spoke to us with bitterness and anger. Instead, he approached us with humility and respect.

The media and educational systems in the country make a clear distinction between the people of the U.S. and our government. And they make a radically sharper distinction between the people of the U.S. who want peace and our government.

The DPRK: Another Country

U.S. scholar Bruce Cumings titled his popular 2004 book, North Korea: Another Country. The subtitle works on two different levels. For one, North Korea truly is another country in that it is a very different kind of country, especially when compared to the U.S. There are no corporate billboards or advertisements, no McDonald's restaurants or Starbucks coffee shops. Women and children walk the streets alone and confidently at any hour of the day. In the countryside hitch hikers are everywhere. There are few police on the streets. The military is present, but you see them doings things like picking up trash or working on construction projects, and you don't see them carrying assault rifles, or any weapons for that matter (we even saw a citizen playfully hitting a soldier). You also don't see many surveillance cameras. Most people are atheists (although we met some Buddhists).

Yet North Korea is also another country in the sense that it is just another country. People go to work, date, get married, have children, play sports and exercise, go shopping, talk on cell phones, ride bikes, read books in parks (sometimes on benches, but oftentimes in a squatting position), play music, and sing and dance (and they sing and dance a lot-and they will make you do it, too). They have agreements and disagreements, smile and cry. They go to plays and concerts, take vacations, swim in rivers. They get frustrated with and yell at each other, and they joke and laugh with each other. They are human beings. It's just another country.

Hard Truths

This was my first trip, but I know people who have made other trips, and many trips. One of my friends who accompanied me there had been literally hundreds of times over the past 30 or so years. He had been there during the 1990s, during the worst years in the country's history. The overthrow and dissolution of the Soviet Union brought economic crisis, which was exacerbated by severe floods and droughts. Rather than send aid, the U.S. tightened sanctions against the country (just like it did to Cuba). Life was intensely difficult.

The sanctions against the country are criminal and must come to an end. But they have had the adverse effect of diversifying and strengthening the DPRK's economy. Unable to trade openly on the global market, the DPRK has become self-sufficient in many areas, including in food production.

Since 2006, they have invested heavily in light industry. All over, you see all kinds of goods made in the DPRK: silverware, chips and snacks, bottled water, purses and backpacks, clothes and shoes, medicines, solar panels (which are everywhere), and fishing nets. They are building new streets with new high-rise apartments, shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues every year. They have their own internet and cell phone network (and 4.5 million cell phones). Everywhere you go, you see construction. In many buildings you can see evidence of recent renovations. While the DPRK doesn't release its economic data, the Hyundai Research Group estimated that the GDP grew by an astronomic 9 percent in 2015.

To be sure, if we are comparing it to the richest parts of the U.S. or Europe it won't hold up much. But the DPRK didn't benefit from centuries of colonizing and enslaving the world. On the contrary, they were the victims of colonialism, and were enslaved by the Japanese.

The hard truth is that the DPRK isn't crumbling from sanctions. And the people there aren't cowering at Trump's incendiary rhetoric.

The 1950-1953 U.S. war against Korea, which they call the Fatherland Liberation War, was absolutely devastating. Three consecutive years of U.S. carpet bombing had totally levelled the country. But even without an air force, the Korean People's Army emerged victorious. They dealt U.S. imperialism its first blow, and forced an armistice on July 27, 1953.

They then completely rebuilt their country. They did it largely on their own, and they did it while navigating constant U.S. aggression. That's part of the reason they were so proud to show us everything, even that which didn't hold up to Western standards.

And that's the reason they aren't backing down. Since their founding in 1948, the DPRK has maintained its independence. It has never been occupied by another country. It has never become a junior partner of any country-not even the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Of this independence they are fiercely proud.

The U.S. has always maintained that the country is on the verge of collapse. This may have been an understandable position in the mid 1990s, when the aforementioned economic and natural tragedies struck, and when their founding leader Kim Il Sung died. But they persevered even then.

The DPRK doesn't want to be locked in an eternal struggle with the U.S. What they want is to be able to determine their destiny and to be able to develop in peace. But this isn't want we are told here in the U.S. We are told they want nothing but our destruction. And in order to uphold this false narrative, our government is preventing us from traveling to the country to see it for ourselves.

Everyone I spoke with in the DPRK wanted me to make up my own mind about their country. Meanwhile, the U.S. government wants to make up my mind for me.

You can see pictures and videos from Derek's trip on his facebook page here , and you can e-mail him at derek.ford@hamptoninstitution.org