It has been 73 years since the U.S. imperialists ignited a war of aggression against the DPRK.

The Korean people were forced to suffer untold misfortune and pain in the unprecedented war of aggression the U.S. imperialists committed with the latest weapons and equipment such as aircraft carriers and more than two million-strong troops, lots of military technical equipment and an astronomical amount of military expenditure and war supplies.

Decades have passed since the war ended in their historic defeat and an armistice was made, but the U.S. imperialists are still trying to provoke another war in a bid to realize their old wild ambition.

They committed more than 150 000 reckless provocations to invade the north, including "Focus Retina", from 1953 to 1999. Such large-scale anti-DPRK war drills as "Team Spirit", "Foal Eagle", "Ulji focus lens" and "reception, staging, onward movement and integration" (RSOI) numbered over 10 000 with the involvement of 20 million troops in total.

The scale of anti-north war drills staged in the region of puppets in 2001 was twice that of the previous year and has expanded every year.

As can be seen from the figures -- at least 110 rounds of war drills in 2018, 190 in 2019, 170 in 2020, 140 in 2021 and 200 in 2022 --, the U.S. imperialists’ moves to provoke a war against the DPRK have further escalated.

This year the U.S. imperialists staged with the puppet forces the largest-ever war drills targeting the DPRK such as joint river-crossing operations, joint airdrop and mobile drill, joint war materiel supply drill, and joint scientific combat drill and joint landing drill.

In particular, the "combined joint fire annihilation drill" was staged in an area along the Military Demarcation Line from May 25 to June 15 with the involvement of huge troops of U.S. forces and the puppet army and more than 610 pieces of military equipment of ground and air forces, including tanks, armored cars, jet fighters and drones. It was literally a war rehearsal and actual maneuvers.

The U.S. imperialists are driving the situation into an extreme phase by deploying nuclear strategic assets such as nuclear submarines and strategic bombers in and around the Korean peninsula one after another.

The war games by the U.S. imperialists and the puppet group are reminiscent of the eve of the June 25 war.

The current situation is touch-and-go owing to the provocative war drills by the U.S. imperialists to ignite a new war on the Korean peninsula.

Over the U.S. imperialists’ military, deliberate and undisguised moves for escalating the tensions, media and experts of the world have expressed deep concern, stating that the U.S.-Japan-puppet south Korea tripartite military alliance is little short of an offensive war system built under the Indo-Pacific strategy of the U.S., the Korean peninsula is at the forefront of its new Cold War strategy, the crisis of the Korean peninsula engulfed in hostility and confrontation is bound to deteriorate with each passing day and armed conflicts may break out anytime as a series of fierce rivalries keep happening there.

However, the DPRK is not what it used to be in the past June 25 war and its people’s revenge has grown stronger with the lapse of time.

The U.S. imperialists, defeated by the young DPRK in the past war, now have to deal with a full-fledged strategic state. If they dare provoke a "second Korean war", failing to draw a lesson from the past Korean War, it will lead to the end of the U.S. itself.

Rodong Sinmun