South Korea (AP) --
Following U.S. warnings to North Korea of a "massive military response,"
South Korea on Monday fired missiles into the sea to simulate an attack
on the North's main nuclear test site a day after Pyongyang detonated
its largest ever nuclear test explosion.
South Korea's Defense
Ministry also said Monday that North Korea appeared to be planning a
future missile launch, possibly of an ICBM, to show off its claimed
ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons, though it was
unclear when this might happen.
The heated words from the United
States and the military maneuvers in South Korea are becoming familiar
responses to North Korea's rapid, as-yet unchecked pursuit of a viable
arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles that can strike the United States.
The most recent, and perhaps most dramatic, advancement came Sunday in
an underground test of what leader Kim Jong Un's government claimed was a
hydrogen bomb, the North's sixth nuclear test since 2006.
Chang
Kyung-soo, an official with South Korea's Defense Ministry, told
lawmakers that Seoul was seeing preparations in the North for an ICBM
test but didn't provide details about how officials had reached that
assessment. Chang also said the yield from the latest nuclear detonation
appeared to be about 50 kilotons, which would mark a "significant
increase" from North Korea's past nuclear tests.
In a series of
tweets, President Donald Trump threatened to halt all trade with
countries doing business with the North, a veiled warning to China, and
faulted South Korea for what he called "talk of appeasement."
A
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, told reporters in
Beijing on Monday that China regarded as "unacceptable a situation in
which on the one hand we work to resolve this issue peacefully but on
the other hand our own interests are subject to sanctions and
jeopardized. This is neither objective nor fair."
South Korea's
military said its live-fire exercise was meant to "strongly warn"
Pyongyang. The drill involved F-15 fighter jets and the country's
land-based "Hyunmoo" ballistic missiles firing into the Sea of Japan.
The
target was set considering the distance to the North's test site and
the exercise was aimed at practicing precision strikes and cutting off
reinforcements, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Each new
North Korean missile and nuclear test gives Pyongyang's scientists
invaluable information that allows big jumps in capability. North Korea
is thought to have a growing arsenal of nuclear bombs and has spent
decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range missile to eventually
carry smaller versions of those bombs.
Both diplomacy and severe sanctions have failed to check the North's decades-long march to nuclear mastery.
In
Washington, Trump, asked by a reporter if he would attack the North,
said: "We'll see." No U.S. military action appeared imminent, and the
immediate focus appeared to be on ratcheting up economic penalties,
which have had little effect thus far.
In briefs remarks after a
White House meeting with Trump and other national security officials,
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that America does not seek
the "total annihilation" of the North, but then added somberly, "We have
many options to do so."
Mattis said the U.S. will answer any
threat from the North with a "massive military response — a response
both effective and overwhelming."
Mattis also said the
international community is unified in demanding the denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula and that Kim should know Washington's commitment to
Japan and South Korea is unshakeable.
The precise strength of
the North's underground nuclear explosion has yet to be determined.
South Korea's weather agency said the artificial earthquake caused by
the explosion was five times to six times stronger than tremors
generated by the North's previous five tests.
Sunday's detonation
builds on recent North Korean advances that include test launches in
July of two ICBMs. The North says its missile development is part of a
defensive effort to build a viable nuclear deterrent that can target
U.S. cities.
North Korea has made a stunning jump in progress for
its nuclear and missile program since Kim rose to power following his
father's death in late 2011. The North followed its two tests of
Hwasong-14 ICBMs, which, when perfected, could target large parts of the
United States, by threatening to launch a salvo of its Hwasong-12
intermediate range missiles toward the U.S. Pacific island territory of
Guam in August.
It flew a Hwasong-12 over northern Japan last
week, the first such overflight by a missile capable of carrying nukes,
in a launch Kim described as a "meaningful prelude" to containing Guam,
the home of major U.S. military facilities, and vowed to launch more
ballistic missile tests targeting the Pacific.
Ahead of the
North's test, photos released by the North Korean government showed Kim
talking with his lieutenants as he observed a silver, peanut-shaped
device that was apparently the purported thermonuclear weapon destined
for an ICBM. The images were taken without outside journalists present
and could not be independently verified. What appeared to be the nose
cone of a missile could also be seen in one photo, and another showed a
diagram on the wall behind Kim of a bomb mounted inside a cone.
The
Arms Control Association in the United States said the explosion
appeared to produce a yield in excess of 100 kilotons of TNT equivalent,
which it said strongly suggests the North tested a high-yield but
compact nuclear weapon that could be launched on a missile of
intermediate or intercontinental range.
Beyond the science of the
blast, North Korea's accelerating push to field a nuclear weapon that
can target all of the United States is creating political complications
for the U.S. as it seeks to balance resolve with reassurance to allies
that Washington will uphold its decades-long commitment to deter nuclear
attack on South Korea and Japan.
That is why some questioned
Trump's jab at South Korea. He tweeted that Seoul is finding that its
"talk of appeasement" will not work. The North Koreans, he added, "only
understand one thing," implying military force might be required. The
U.S. has about 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea and is obliged by
treaty to defend it in the event of war.
Trump also suggested
putting more pressure on China, the North's patron for many decades and a
vital U.S. trading partner, in hopes of persuading Beijing to exert
more effective leverage on its neighbor. Trump tweeted that the U.S. is
considering "stopping all trade with any country doing business with
North Korea." Such a halt would be radical. The U.S. imports about $40
billion in goods a month from China, North Korea's main commercial
partner.
Experts have questioned whether the North has gone too
far down the nuclear road to continue pushing for a denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula, an Obama administration policy goal still embraced
by Trump's White House.
"Denuclearization
is not a viable U.S. policy goal," said Richard Fontaine, president of
the Center for a New American Security, but neither should the U.S.
accept North Korea as a nuclear power. "We should keep denuclearization
as a long-term aspiration, but recognize privately that it's
unachievable anytime soon."
No comments:
Post a comment