Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton told reporters in Beijing on Friday that North Korea is a “time-limited problem set.” Trump has often talked about America disarming Kim on its own should China not help, and there now looks to be a deadline for getting the job done. In these circumstances, an attack on the North’s facilities becomes conceivable. Should Moon carry through on his threats and move his country closer to China and North Korea, Trump could conceivably decide that the lives of South Koreans are not his primary concern.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, elected on May 9, made statements during the campaign that sounded inconsistent with the U.S.-South Korea mutual defense treaty.

Pacific Command, said in New York last week, “Just because it’s tragic doesn’t mean he won’t do it.”Īnd the probability of America using force may just have gone up. As Secretary of Defense James Mattis said a week ago at a Pentagon press briefing, “If this goes to a military solution, it’s going to be tragic on an unbelievable scale.” hits his nuke and missile sites, order the destruction of Seoul, a good part of the rest of South Korea, and Japan in retaliation. Kim may feel the three strike groups are irrelevant because he can, if the U.S. As Dreyer points out, “Bringing in three carrier groups and not using them sends a bad signal.” Should Kim think Trump is bluffing with the Carl Vinson, the Ronald Reagan, and the Nimitz and he proceeds with his launches and detonations, the American president will find himself in an uncomfortable position. has backed off enough times in the past that Kim probably doesn’t believe that we will use the firepower on him.”Īnd as Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania has said many times, Washington has continually taught autocrats to disregard its warnings. “Lots of firepower can deter only if the intended target feels genuinely threatened by it,” June Teufel Dreyer, a University of Miami political science professor and a leading Asia watcher, told me. We may think Kim Jong Un should be worried by the presence of three carrier strike groups near his shores, but he may not be all that concerned. As Fanell says, “Make no mistake: The target list for North Korea has been continuously updated during the past 50 years.” That would be a good place for the North Korean leader. “If I were Kim Jong Un, I’d move deep underground.” has ever deployed three aircraft carrier strike groups to the Korean peninsula,” James Fanell, former director of Intelligence and Information Operations for the U.S.

Navy from 1986 to 2015, and I do not remember a time that the U.S. It is not clear whether Nimitz will join the other two carriers, but the message of its redeployment is clear. The Carl Vinson is already in the Sea of Japan, where it will participate in drills with the Reagan. The carrier was scheduled to deploy to the Middle East, but now it has been rerouted to the Western Pacific because of the tensions on the Korean peninsula. “It won’t happen!” Trump, then president-elect, tweeted.Īnd this is where the Nimitz comes in. 1 boast, Trump said the North was never going to launch a long-range missile. Its range is of some interest because, in response to Kim’s Jan. Most analysts say the Hwasong-12 is just an intermediate-range missile, but some think it is in fact an intercontinental one. As a result, Kim Jong Un, the North Korean supremo, should be able to hit the lower 48 states with a nuclear warhead in just a few years. Initial reports say the heat shielding worked, which means Pyongyang has passed a crucial technical threshold. On May 14, for instance, the Hwasong-12 was fired at a high trajectory to test the reentry into the atmosphere of a warhead. Recent efforts have generally been successful. Moreover, the North in recent days has been launching ballistic missiles at the rate of about one a week in what is obviously an accelerated program. Satellite imagery indicates that all initial preparations have been completed. The device, in all probability, has already been buried in a tunnel at the Punggye-ri test site in the northeastern part of the country. They are apparently ready to conduct their sixth test of a nuclear device. There is plenty to warn the North Koreans about.

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