To say that Washington “protects” South Korea is to misunderstand the nature of a client state. Washington is putting pressure on Seoul to provide weapons to Ukraine as part of Washington’s proxy war there against Russia. The Cold War is dead, long live the Cold War. The United States does not protect South Korea. The United States keeps bases in the South to ensure that it does not, and cannot, stray from loyalty to Washington’s global and regional prerogatives. The Great Game against the Russians runs through Seoul and a dozen other capitals. That is the reality of the American military in South Korea. There are North Korean troops in Russia, we are told (although fake news abounds). But pay no attention to the American troops crowding the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
Martial law in South Korea did not begin with the establishment of the Republic of Korea, the state that still exists today. It began and continues under the control of the United States. The USA rules South Korea with an iron fist, albeit a lavishly gloved one. And it is rarely the American fist, but the Korean one acting on its behalf, that strikes down against the Korean people. As South Korean institutions have matured, the U.S. has come to take an even more passive role in most of the day-to-day head-cracking that all governments use to “keep the peace.” But that was not always the case. Rifle-butt law-and-order in the southern half of the Korean peninsula is not an American vintage, but starting in 1945, it became very much an American brand.
South Korea is not the only country in East Asia that is under American martial law, of course. Its neighbor across the sea, Japan, is South Korea’s twin when it comes to being under Washington’s control. Like South Korea, Japan appears to be a functioning democracy. But in big things, and in anything which Washington sees as impinging on its imperial prerogatives, Japan is under a military dictatorship. Not its own military. Japan doesn’t have a military. After 1945, Washington wouldn’t give it one. Japan’s martial law is entirely a creature of the Potomac basin. The current American ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, behaves like a satrap, dictating policy to the Japanese Diet and expecting (and receiving) absolute submission. On the bureaucratic side, a handful of Japanese pencil-pushers from Nagatacho meet regularly with American military brass to receive orders. The Joint Japan-U.S. Committee (Nichibei Godo Iinkai) may sound consensual, but it is backed up by the threat of swift and direct military action. Washington’s diktat is translated into Japanese and followed to the letter by the Japanese government. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are nominally independent, under the ultimate control of the prime minister, but that is not an accurate reflection of realities on the ground. Consider that Japan’s constitution has no provision for the declaration of emergencies. It doesn’t need one. Washington is martial law in Japan.