Tillerson says US ‘strategic patience’ with N. Korea over

Meanwhile, China’s role on the Korean Peninsula is becoming more complicated.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first visit to South Korea on Friday.

The latest indicators, the United States officials told CNN, is that North Korea has moved some launch equipment that is associated with an intercontinental ballistic missile launch, believing that Washington can not track them there. “China has done little to help!” he tweeted.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Tillerson said North Korea has nothing to fear from the US or its allies, comments that appeared aimed partly at assuaging China, which has long held that North Korea pursued nuclear weapons out of fear that the USA wanted to topple the regime established by Kim’s grandfather after World War II.

Tillerson admitted it would be challenging but said he accepted that challenge “willingly”.

F-18 fighter jets took off from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered carrier in a dramatic display of US firepower amid rising tension with the North, which has alarmed its neighbors with two nuclear tests and a series of missile launches since past year.

First, a war with North Korea would take extensive planning, coordinating, rehearsing and preposition of military assets.

US President Donald Trump has apparently made a decision to increase the pressure on North Korea rather than make good on his campaign rhetoric and speak directly with Kim.

“Rather than making provocative threats and refusing to negotiate, the Trump administration should engage in coercive diplomacy aimed at halting and eventually rolling back North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program”, Markey said in a statement Friday.

He said it was time for a new policy on North Korea, but released no details.

“Certainly, we do not want things to get to a military conflict. but obviously, if North Korea takes actions that threatens the South Korean forces or our own forces, then that would be met with an appropriate response”, Tillerson said in response to a question.

Liberal leaders advocate a return to engagement polices that might rebuild trust and reduce tensions through exchanges and selective economic aid and joint ventures.While the South Korean Sunshine policy of engagement that began at the turn of the century ultimately failed to stop the North from developing nuclear weapons, they argue it did have some success in slowing the pace of progress.

Such measures will require Chinese cooperation since China and Chinese companies continue to serve as North Korea’s primary economic lifeline and financial conduit to the world. In fact, they point out, Pyongyang has accelerated nuclear and ballistic missile testing at an unprecedented rate in the previous year despite the increased global sanctions imposed on them. Meanwhile, the United States argues it has no choice but to start the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems in South Korea to defend against potential missile attacks from the north.

Central to the US review is China and its role in any bid to persuade Pyongyang to change course.

Beijing and Washington also are clashing over the deployment of a USA anti-missile system to South Korea. The prediction is that he will announce plans to set up THAAD and another missile defense system, and to apply pressure on Chinese financial institutions if Beijing does not use its influence to hold Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs in check.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (l.) is welcomed by his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida (r.) at the Iikura Guesthouse in Tokyo on March 16, 2017. He said the allies had no intention to stand down the exercises that are defensive in nature and conducted transparently, unlike North Korean missile launches.

His thesis is that North Korea, the US and its South Korean ally are embarked on a unsafe course of gaming out first-strike capacities.

The United States has also started to deploy “Gray Eagle” attack drones to South Korea, a USA military spokesman said on Monday.

Unfortunately, the war won’t go as planned for many reasons – if the North is successful in launching a nuclear weapon that destroys part of Seoul, that would change the calculus of our counter response. So what’s left us so unprepared?

Six-nation aid-for-disarmament talks with North Korea, which were hosted by China, have in fact been stalled since 2009.

The US has accused China, North Korea’s main ally, of not doing enough to rein it in but Beijing remains wary of any action that could destabilise the North Korean government and potentially create chaos on its border.

“There’s really no military that has a chance against the United States outside”. But with the Trump administration reportedly having recently ruled out either of these two extremes, Washington does not appear to have any surefire solutions in its bag. With Kim acting tough, the U.S. Army says it’s moving “as quickly as possible” to deploy THAAD in South Korea. More than a million mines are believed to be buried inside the DMZ.