by Liu Chang
BEIJING, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A new Cold War is looming large in Northeast Asia as Washington insists on installing an anti-missile shield in South Korea, a provocative move that could further split the region, trigger a fresh arms race and crush hopes of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Immediately after the Second World War, the U.S.-led Western bloc sought to dictate post-war world order and contain the Soviet Union to ensure global supremacy as well as the proliferation of capitalism and its set of values worldwide. And that was how the Cold War set in.
Over the following four decades of confrontation, most of the world's nations were forced to take sides and paid a heavy price for struggles between two super powers, a price no lighter than all-out hot wars.
Nearly three decades following the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth, risks goading North East Asia back into conflict, chaos and estrangement.
The Obama administration claims the anti-missile shield could help defend South Korea against potential security threat from its neighbor the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
However, given the fact that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield is designed to intercept incoming inter-continental ballistic missiles at relatively higher altitudes, the DPRK needs only short-range rockets and conventional arms to launch devastating attacks on its southern neighbor, thereby rendering the shield as an ineffective deterrent.
Read the full story at Xinhua