NATIONAL SECURITY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “When North Korea has made military threats in recent times, it has usually sought an off-ramp before tensions could spill over into armed conflict.
But the current standoff—U.S. President Donald Trump warning North Korea of ‘fire and fury,’ Pyongyang declaring its intention to send missiles into the waters off Guam, site of a U.S. military base—could extend for weeks or months, security experts and scholars say. Unlike in the past, North Korea is near having the plausible ability to strike the U.S. mainland with nuclear weapons.
The exchange of threats comes at a particularly delicate moment on the Korean Peninsula, less than two weeks before a planned joint military exercise by the U.S. and its allies in South Korea. The annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, expected to start around Aug. 21 and usually lasting about two weeks, incense North Korea. A spokeswoman for the U.S. military in South Korea declined to comment on the exercises beyond saying they are ‘regularly scheduled’ drills.
On the North Korean side, the general leading the country’s missile program is set in ‘mid-August’ to present leader Kim Jong Un with a specific plan for the simultaneous launch of four intermediate-range missiles toward Guam, according to a North Korean state media report on Thursday. Separately, there are concerns that Pyongyang could answer the latest United Nations Security Council sanctions with another nuclear test or a long-range missile launch.”
-Jonathan Cheng, “Latest Korean Standoff May Lack an Off-Ramp,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 10, 2017 11:01am