US sending attack drones to South Korea

Pyongyang, for instance, would like the United States and South Korea to stop the annual, large-scale Foal Eagle military drills that the Kim regime has long described as a yearly rehearsal for a full invasion of the North (those exercises are now happening).

North Korea is expected to top the agenda at Tillerson’s talks in Tokyo.

Those words hint at a departure from the North Korea policy pursued by the Obama administration, which sought to use multilateral sanctions to pressure the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, into agreeing to denuclearisation in exchange for aid and investment.

Well before going nuclear, North Korea has dogged every USA president since Harry Truman.

North Korea has a long-standing ambition to become a nuclear power and conducted its first underground atomic test in 2006, in the face of global opposition.

Japanese officials have not ruled out the possibility that Pyongyang may have already succeeded in developing a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on such a missile. “These aren’t missile tests, they are military exercises”, Lewis wrote in Foreign Policy.

The drill comes amid increasing missile threats from North Korea. Besides issues of cooperation between Tokyo, Washington and Seoul to solve North Korea’s nuclear issue, the sides discussed Japan’s policy towards Russian Federation and the United States stance on this. He also left the military option on the table if the North Korean threat gets too large. The practice efforts include taking out Kim and assaulting his nuclear and missile facilities, according to Lewis. But North Korea, hearing Bush’s threat, built and tested five atom bombs and scores of missiles, a few of intercontinental range. So far, the USA has delivered an anti-ballistic missile system to South Korea and leaned on the Chinese to lean on Kim, but the White House has yet to outline any kind of a strategy for stopping him.

For China, this crisis, whether it leads to war, a USA buildup in the South, or a US withdrawal from Korea, is problematic. “He has to go first, if he is to go at all”, Lewis wrote. Japan is preparing for a potential nuclear strike against the island nation as North Korea continues to demonstrate its ability to reach the country with its missiles.

“North Korea’s accelerating program of nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile launches constitute a threat to worldwide peace and security and violate multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions”, U.S. Pacific Command said in a news release regarding the THAAD deployment. But there are sharply differing views on how to change North Korea’s calculations.

The obvious counterargument is that previous talks have produced no resolution. These high-stakes political and diplomatic moves carry serious risks. Everyone at the table would be more nervous than ever.

While the US and its allies in Seoul and Tokyo implore Beijing to press its economic leverage over North Korea, the Chinese have emphasized their desire to relaunch diplomatic talks – a non-starter for the USA under current conditions. Thus it could upset the balance of power with the US, setting off an increased arms race.

With apparently little prospect of a breakthrough, some foreign policy hawks in Washington have been pushing for secondary sanctions that would hurt Chinese banks doing business with North Korea.

“Although (South Korea) is in a hard transitional period of time, the secretary visited (Korea) as planned, and this is proof that South Korea and the USA go shoulder to shoulder 100 percent”, he added. “(With) the recent North Korean behavior, and with the Foal Eagle exercise going on, I think it’s a good time (to deploy)”.