The commander of American forces in South Korea has underscored the Korean Peninsula's central role in the U.S. security strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, according to a website of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on Tuesday, noting the peninsula's location between the Asian continent and the Pacific region. Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of USFK, made the remarks at a lecture at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday at a time when Seoul and Washington are pushing to "modernize" their alliance in a way that would increase South Korea's role in its own defense and its contributions to addressing regional threats. "Korea is not a side chapter in American strategy," Brunson said, according to the website. "If you put the peninsula in the first chapter, the geometry of the region and the value of our alliances become impossible to ignore." Describing the Korean Peninsula as a "hinge between the Asian continent and Pacific maritime approaches," Brunson said the peninsula "should be viewed as a central pillar of U.S. and allied strategy." On the Korean Peninsula, B