North Korea made a new threat against the U. S. territory of Guam even as it considers an atmospheric hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific.
Once again, North Korea on Friday raised the threat to launch a ballistic missile toward the U. S. Pacific territory of Guam. It still hasn’t followed through on another threat: to conduct an atmospheric hydrogen bomb test.
The new Guam threat comes ahead of planned U. S.-South Korean joint maritime exercises scheduled to start next week in the Asia-Pacific region. A Navy statement issued Thursday indicated exercises will include the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and at least two destroyer vessels.
In August, the North’s state-run KCNA news agency said the regime was „seriously examining…an enveloping strike at Guam.“ The same propaganda outlet renewed the threat Friday against Guam, home to U. S. military bases with an estimated 6,000 troops.
Then, last month North Korea’s foreign minister told reporters the regime’s leader Kim Jong Un was considering „the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb“ in the Pacific. It followed Trump’s first address to the United Nations general assembly Sept. 19 that the U. S. and its allies were prepared to „totally destroy“ North Korea.
„If North Korea puts a nuclear warhead on the tip of a missile and explodes it over the Pacific, that would be the most provocative action North Korea could take short of starting a war,“ said Kelsey Davenport, director for non-profileration policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan disarmament group based in Washington.
Some experts see the Guam and atmospheric hydrogen bomb test threats both as bluster.
„I do not think the North Koreans now are going to make any provocative moves probably for the next month or so,“ said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank founded by former President Richard Nixon. „Reason why is with President Trump putting so much pressure on Iran, the North Koreans are very smart to let the Iranians take the heat sort of in the international arena now.“
Kazianis added, „They would be very foolish to do anything on Guam or anything else. They might make threats. But I don’t think they’ll do any missile or nuclear tests in the short to immediate future.“
For its part, the Pentagon remains steadfast in its commitment to handle any threats against Guam.
„U. S. Pacific Command forces always maintain a high state of readiness and have capabilities to counter any threat to Guam, to include those from North Korea,“ Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Logan told CNBC in an email statement Friday.
Meantime, if the North Korean leader does go ahead with the hydrogen bomb test above the Pacific some experts believe it would push President Donald Trump to push for regime change in Pyongyang.
The U. S. conducted nuclear weapon testing in the Pacific from 1946 until 1962.
