Tensions are rising on the Korean peninsula this weekend with speculation mounting over whether North Korea is about to test a nuclear weapon and questions of what President Trump is preparing to do in response.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is headed toward North Korea as a show of force. This sort of scenario—beefed up U.S. naval presence combined with a North Korean weapons test—has happened before, quite recently in fact. The difference now, of course, is that Trump is president and nobody really knows what his North Korea policy is (or what might be going on in his head).
NBC reported on Thursday that the U.S. was preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea if the military was convinced the isolated state was about to conduct a nuclear weapons test. Using pre-emptive military force to counter a test would be a major shift in strategy. The NBC report suggested the strike could be a tomahawk missile barrage, the same weapon used against Bashar al-Assad’s air force in Syria last week, but it’s not quite clear what the target would be. A Trump administration official called the report “flat wrong.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is reportedly growing “desperate” and is ready to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon, a defector from the regime said on Sunday.
Thae Yong Ho, the most senior North Korean defector in 20 years, told NBC News that Kim Jong Un is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and [intercontinental ballistic missiles].”
“Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons with ICBM,” said Thae, who defected in August.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is headed toward North Korea as a show of force. This sort of scenario—beefed up U.S. naval presence combined with a North Korean weapons test—has happened before, quite recently in fact. The difference now, of course, is that Trump is president and nobody really knows what his North Korea policy is (or what might be going on in his head).
NBC reported on Thursday that the U.S. was preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea if the military was convinced the isolated state was about to conduct a nuclear weapons test. Using pre-emptive military force to counter a test would be a major shift in strategy. The NBC report suggested the strike could be a tomahawk missile barrage, the same weapon used against Bashar al-Assad’s air force in Syria last week, but it’s not quite clear what the target would be. A Trump administration official called the report “flat wrong.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is reportedly growing “desperate” and is ready to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon, a defector from the regime said on Sunday.
Thae Yong Ho, the most senior North Korean defector in 20 years, told NBC News that Kim Jong Un is “desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and [intercontinental ballistic missiles].”
“Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons with ICBM,” said Thae, who defected in August.