Leaders repeat warning against Kim aggression
SABERS ARE rattling and threatening tweets are flying, but if tensions boil over into a military clash between the U.S. and North Korea, American forces are ready, officials said Sunday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to soon finalize plans to launch four missiles into the waters off the U.S. territory of Guam. In response, U.S. forces, along with South Korean and Japanese allies, have missile defense systems and other military muscle on standby.
And while senior U.S. national security officials said Sunday that a military conflict wasn’t imminent, they warned the heated rhetoric on both sides of the Pacific has raised the possibility of a showdown.
“We’re not closer to war than a week ago, but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago,” President Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
He repeated a warning Trump issued last week.
“The U.S. military is locked and loaded every day,” McMaster said.
If Kim follows through on the provocative plan, his Hwasong-12 missiles would fly over Japan and travel 1,065 seconds before hitting the waters 19 to 25 miles from Guam. The shrill screeching of a siren would cut through the balmy air on the tropical island as soon as the launch was underway — indicating the quartet of ballistic missiles are a mere 14 minutes away. More than 7,000 military personnel and 160,000 civilians live on the tiny island in the western Pacific. The first line of defense against the attack would be a battery of destroyers equipped with missile interceptors that the U.S. and Japanese navies have stationed in the Sea of Japan.
The ships carry SM-3 missiles designed for ballistic missile defense.
They also carry the Aegis system, which includes high-powered radar able to perform search, track and missile guidance functions simultaneously.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency systems use sensors in space, at sea and on land capable of tracking enemy projectiles, Reuters reported.
One component, the ground-based Midcourse Defense system, has shown a success rate just above 55%. The Aegis system has about an 83% success rate, according to the agency.