US flies bombers and fighters in display of force against N. Korea
seoul — The United States flew some of its most advanced warplanes in bombing drills with ally South Korea on Thursday, a clear warning after North Korea launched a midrange ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear bombs over Japan earlier this week, South Korea’s military said. North Korea hates such displays of US military might at close range and will likely respond with fury.
Two US B-1B supersonic bombers and four F-35 stealth fighter jets joined four South Korean F-15 fighters in live-fire exercises at a military field in eastern South Korea that simulated precision strikes against the North’s “core facilities,” an official from Seoul’s Defence Ministry said. The B1Bs were flown in from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam while the
War is not an option in finding a solution to pyongyang’s growing nuclear capabilities Col. Ren Guoqiang, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman
F-35s came from a US base in Iwakuni, Japan, the official said. He didn’t want to be named, citing office rules.
The North, which claims Washington has long threatened Pyongyang by flaunting the powerful US nuclear arsenal, describes the long-range B-1Bs as “nuclear strategic bombers” although the United States no longer arms them with nuclear weapons. A strong North Korean reaction to the drills is almost certain.
The dueling military displays open up the risk that things will get worse as each side seeks to show it won’t be intimidated.
North Korea has made it clear that it sees its weapons programme, which demands regular testing to perfect, as the only way to contest decades of US hostility, by which it means the huge US military presence in South Korea, Japan and the Pacific. Washington, in turn, seeks with its joint drills with Seoul and bomber flights to show that it will not be pushed from its traditional role of supremacy in the region.
More missile tests, more bomber flyovers and three angry armies facing each other across the world’s most heavily armed border raises the possibility that a miscalculation could lead to real fighting. In Beijing, North Korea’s powerful ally China warned that war is not an option in finding a solution to Pyongyang’s growing nuclear capabilities. —