US shows off military might

US heavy bombers and stealth jet fighters took part in a joint live fire drill in South Korea on Thursday, intended as a show of force against the North after its latest missile launch.

“South Korean and US air forces conducted an air interdiction exercise in order to strongly cope with North Korea’s repeated firing of ballistic missiles and development of nuclear weapons,” the South’s air force said. Two B-1B Lancer bombers from Guam and four F35B stealth jet fighters from the Marine Corps’ Iwakuni air base in Japan conducted the drill.

B-1B overflights of the peninsula from Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, infuriate the North, which cited them when it announced a plan to fire a salvo of missiles towards the island.

It was one of the moves that fuelled spiralling tension in August, along with a new set of UN Security Council sanctions, US President Donald Trump’s apocalyptic warning of “fire and fury” and, culminating with the North firing a missile over Japan on Tuesday.

Trump tweeted that “the US has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!”

Moscow urged Washington not to use force against North Korea and said attempts to toughen sanctions would prove to be counterproductive.

In a phone call late on Wednesday to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “underscored ... the need to refrain from any military steps that could have unpredictable consequences”, Moscow said.