Tensions rise over Trump’s nuclear boasts
TENSION over North Korea ratcheted up again yesterday after President Trump boasted about the power of the United States’ nuclear capability, saying it was ‘far stronger and more powerful than ever’.
The world has been left holding its breath, fearing conflict, after North Korea said it was considering a missile strike on Guam.
The US territory and key military base is only 2,000 miles from the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang is said by analysts to have miniaturised a nuclear warhead so that it would fit on a missile capable of striking the mainland US.
Mr Trump sent a shudder through Asia when he threatened to unleash ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’ against Kim Jong-un’s secretive regime.
As the nuclear stand-off escalated, Pentagon defence chief Jim Mattis, a former US Marine general, told North Korea it should stop ‘actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people’.
Governments around the world were urging the Americans to seek a diplomatic solution, with China and Russia identified as key to a peaceful resolution.
THE war of threats between President Trump and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, is setting global nerves on edge.
We’re used to blood curdling propaganda from Pyongyang, but an American president using the same kind of language – ‘fire and fury’ – is a new departure. The threat of nuclear war in East Asia is suddenly alarmingly close.
But before this hysterical rhetoric reaches a climax, Western leaders must consider what history and strategic analysis teaches us about how to avoid calamity – or how best to contain it.
The devastating nature of the first Korean War in 1950-53 is a warning of the huge costs of a second, which could also drag in countries as close as Japan, as remote as Britain or as reluctant as China.
The options Washington is considering, range from the tried-andtrusted – to the once unthinkable.