U.S. response to N. Korean threat mixed
As nuclear tensions rise, Trump’s team labors over how to deal with Pyongyang
WASHINGTON — With few good military or diplomatic options and the danger clearly escalating, the Trump administration is struggling with how to confront a nuclear-armed North Korea that suddenly appears capable of hitting California and beyond with a ballistic missile.
As experts study whether Pyongyang’s second intercontinental missile test landed on target in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, or disintegrated after it re-entered the atmosphere July 29, senior administration officials have given mixed messages about a possible U.S. response.
It’s unclear if the disparate messages represent a deliberate effort to keep Pyongyang off guard, or indicates ambivalence on a major foreign policy issue in a White House battling chaos on several fronts.
President Donald Trump insisted this week that he will “handle” North Korea and on Wednesday signed legislation that will impose more sanctions on Pyongyang. But he has not indicated how he would defuse the threat beyond demanding that China apply more political and economic pressure to rein in its neighbor.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson leaves Thursday for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations security conference in Manila. Despite the rising tensions, he will not meet North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, while in the Philippines, officials said Wednesday.
But Tillerson used a news conference Tuesday at the State Department to seemingly speak to the leaders in Pyongyang.
“We do not seek a regime change,” he said. “We do not seek the collapse of the regime. We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel,” the heavily guarded border between North and South Korea.”
Tillerson described U.S. sanctions on North Korea and efforts to isolate it diplomatically, politically and economically as “peaceful pressure.”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo had suggested a more bellicose approach last month at a security conference in Colorado. He repeatedly called for separating Kim from his nuclear arsenal, saying the North Korean people “would love to see him go.”
Experts say North Korea does not have a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. It also has not built a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop an ICBM and robust enough to survive the heat and pressure of re-entry. But both achievements appear within reach.
After the latest test, the U.S. and its regional allies responded with a symbolic show of force.
On Saturday, U.S. and South Korean forces launched salvos of missiles into the sea from South Korea’s east coast. The next day, the U.S. Air Force flew two supersonic B-1 bombers over the Korean Peninsula along with fighter jets from Japan and South Korea.
On Wednesday, the Air force launched an unarmed Minuteman III from Vandenberg Air Force Base into the central Pacific. It was the fourth test of the ICBM, which can carry a nuclear warhead, from the California base this year.
“If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing,” said Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of the Air Force component in U.S. Pacific Command.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has sought to downplay the likelihood of a U.S. attack on North Korea. But he also has said Pyongyang must “change its behavior.”
The mixed messages start from the White House, where Trump asserted Saturday on Twitter that China has done “NOTHING for us … just talk” to help with North Korea.
The State Department offered a different view Wednesday.
Susan Thornton, acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said China has taken “unprecedented steps” to rein in North Korea.
“They realize that this is becoming a greater and greater threat to China’s own security,” she told reporters. China is showing “growing determination” to address the crisis but “can do a lot more,” she added.
China has urged Washington to negotiate with Pyongyang, a prospect that Trump appeared to consider in May when he said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim “under the right circumstances.”