Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S. warns N. Korea of ‘massive’ response
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Sunday shot back at North Korea’s claimed test of a hydrogen bomb with a blunt threat, saying the U.S. has the ability to answer any threat from the North with a “massive military response — a response both effective and overwhelming.”
President Donald Trump called North Korea’s nuclear test, its biggest to date, “very hostile and dangerous to the United States” and said his administration was considering sweeping new economic sanctions to pressure China and every other country that trades with North Korea.
The tough talk from America’s commander in chief and the retired Marine general he picked to oversee the Pentagon came as the Trump administration searched for a response to the escalating crisis. Kim Jong Un’s regime on Sunday claimed “perfect success” in an underground test of what it called a hydrogen bomb. It was the North’s sixth nuclear test since 2006 — the first since Trump took office in January — and involved a device potentially vastly more powerful than a nuclear bomb.
Trump, asked by a reporter during a trip to church services 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 South Korea, the nation’s military said it conducted a live-fire exercise simulating an attack on North Korea’s nuclear test site to “strongly warn” Pyongyang over the latest nuclear test. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the drill involved F-15 fighter jets and the country’s land-based “Hyunmoo” ballistic missiles. The released live weapons “accurately struck” a target in the sea off the country’s eastern coast, the military said.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting at the request of the U.S., Japan, France, Britain and South Korea. It would be the Security Council’s second urgent session in less than a week on the North’s weapons tests, which have continued in the face of a series of sanctions.
Members of Congress expressed alarm at the North’s test and emphasized strengthening U.S. missile defenses. Leaders in Russia, China and Europe issued condemnations.
In briefs remarks after a White House meeting with Trump and other national security officials, 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.” The administration has emphasized its pursuit of diplomatic solutions, knowing the potentially horrific costs of war with the North. But the decision to have Mattis deliver a public statement seemed to suggest an escalating crisis.
Mattis also said the international community is unified in demanding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that Kim should know that Washington’s commitment to Japan and South Korea is unshakeable.
The precise strength of the underground nuclear explosion had 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.
North Korea’s state-run television broadcast a special bulletin to announce the test, and said Kim attended a meeting of the ruling party’s presidium and signed the go-ahead order. Earlier, the party’s newspaper published photos of Kim examining what it said was a nuclear warhead being fitted onto an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Sunday’s detonation builds on recent North Korean advances that include test launches in July of two ICBMs that are believed to be capable of reaching the mainland United States. The North says its missile development is part of a defensive effort to build a viable nuclear deterrent that can target U.S. cities.
The Arms Control Association 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.
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said the North probably will need to do more tests before achieving a functioning hydrogen bomb design.
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 United States as it seeks to balance resolve with reassurance to allies that Washington will uphold its decadeslong commitment to deter nuclear attack on South Korea and Japan.
While South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a statement that he was furious about the test, he also urged North Korea to agree to negotiations. Trump criticized South Korea for this approach. “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” he said in another tweet.
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.
Trump’s threat would be nearly impossible to pull off without having enormous implications for the U.S. economy. China is a large trading partner of North Korea, but it is also the largest U.S. trading partner in terms of goods imported and exported.
In 2016, U.S. companies exported $169.3 billion in goods to China and China exported $478.9 billion in goods to the United States. Halting all of that trade would a major effect on both economies, even driving up prices on all sorts of consumer goods.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was calling counterparts in Asia.
It’s unclear what kind of sanctions might make a difference. Lassina Zerbo, head of the U.N. test ban treaty organization, said sanctions already imposed against North Korea aren’t working.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency said President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, meeting on the sidelines of a Beijing-led economic summit, agreed “to adhere to the goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, have close communication and coordination and properly respond” to the test.
Experts have questioned whether the North has gone too far down the nuclear road to continue pushing for a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a policy goal from former President Barack Obama’s administration 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.”
Trump warned last month that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely” and that the U.S. would unleash “fire and fury” on the North if it continued to threaten America. The bellicose words came after threats from North Korea to launch ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, intending to create “enveloping fire” near the military hub that’s home to U.S. bombers and other aircraft.