FOREIGN POLICY/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The United States and South Korea wrapped up their annual joint military exercises on Thursday [8-31-17] by flying some of their most powerful warplanes in bombing drills in a show of force two days after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan.
Two B-1B supersonic bombers and four F-35 stealth fighter jets from the United States Air Force and Marine Corps joined four South Korean F-15 fighter jets in live-fire bombing exercises over a military range in eastern South Korea, officials said.
On their way to join the South Korean jets, the American warplanes flew together with two F-15s from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces over waters near the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu, the United States Pacific Command said in a statement…
South Korean F-15s conducted a similar bombing drill over the same range on Tuesday, hours after a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile from North Korea flew over northern Japan and splashed into the Pacific after a flight of nearly 1,700 miles.
North Korea’s test on Tuesday marked the first time that a missile from the North had flown over another country. Its leader, Kim Jong-un, said on Wednesday that the test could be a “curtain raiser” for more such tests in the Pacific. The missile test rattled a region increasingly concerned about North Korea’s fast-advancing missile capabilities and its increasingly bold way of demonstrating them.”
-Choe Sang-Hun, “With Tensions High Over North Korea, U.S. and South Korea Finish Drills,” The New York Times online, Aug. 31, 2017