The United States military is preparing for a still-unlikely war with North Korea.
That’s the takeaway from two big stories that broke over the long weekend. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that US troops are actively holding training exercises specifically geared toward a possible war with North Korea. And the Associated Press reported on Monday that the US has now started sending ships and bombers toward the Korean Peninsula, beefing up its military presence in the region.
But that’s not all. It looks like Japan has started thinking about ways to evacuate thousands of its citizens from South Korea if war with North Korea does break out.
If you missed any of it because you wanted to enjoy a drama-free long weekend, no worries. We’ve got you covered.
America is preparing for a possible war with North Korea
War with North Korea doesn’t appear imminent, especially with the 2018 Olympics in South Korea due to start on February 9. But the US is preparing for that possibility all the same.
According to the Associated Press, the US has started moving planes, ships, and troops closer to North Korea. Three B-2 bombers are now positioned in Guam, a US territory with military bases only 2,200 miles away from country. That’s significant: The B-2 is the Air Force’s most advanced bomber — and it can carry nuclear weapons. The Air Force also sent six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Guam.
On top of that, the USS Carl Vinson is on its way toward the western Pacific Ocean. The Navy says it’s for a regularly scheduled deployment, but North Korea may still find the move threatening. That’s because an aircraft carrier can, well, carry aircraft. Think of them as floating airports that the US can place near almost any country it wants. The US can put multiple attack planes on it, moving them much closer to their potential targets in North Korea should war break out.
There’s already another US aircraft carrier based in Japan, and a third may soon be heading toward the region as well. If all three of these carriers near North Korea at once, the country may start to feel nervous. After all, that would signal that the US has three sea-based airports ready for use in case of war.
And finally, the USS Wasp docked in southern Japan on Sunday. That ship carries troops and more than 30 planes, including the F-35 stealth fighter — one of America’s most advanced attack aircraft and one that would almost certainly be used if war with North Korea were to break out.
The New York Times also reports that US troops are in the midst of widespread training for a possible war with North Korea. In one exercise the Times reported on, troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina practiced moving troops and equipment during an artillery attack using 48 ships and helicopters. In another exercise above Nevada, about 120 soldiers simulated parachuting into an enemy’s territory while dark outside. And in yet another exercise, about 1,000 reserve soldiers honed how to move US forces abroad very quickly.
Taken together, this reveals a military-wide effort to prepare for a possible war against North Korea. But for now, there is no indication all of this practice will be put into actual use anytime soon.
Japan is preparing to evacuate its citizens in South Korea
The Japanese government is increasingly worried about the fate of its 60,000 citizens living in South Korea and has started looking into ways to get them out should a crisis with North Korea break out and South Korea’s airports become inoperable.
Here’s one of Japan’s plans: use military ships as evacuation shuttles. Japanese and American vessels would pick up fleeing citizens from Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city and the country’s largest port.
The ships would take passengers to Japan’s Tsushima Island, which is only about 30 miles from Busan. Those evacuees would head onward to Japan’s main island of Kyushu about 24 to 48 hours later.
Countries have contingency plans for all kinds of emergencies, so it’s no surprise that Japan and the US drew up a scheme to remove their citizens from harm’s way. But it’s still sobering to think that there is a chance — albeit a small one — that this plan might be put into action in the event of a war.
The US and its allies meet to end North Korea’s nuclear program
Officials from 20 countries are meeting in Vancouver on Tuesday to figure out how to get North Korea to stop its nuclear program. The US and Canada are co-hosts, and most of the countries represented are nations that helped South Korea fight the North in the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons is a tough challenge. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un believes that having nuclear weapons — and missiles to deliver them to faraway targets — will ensure the regime’s survival by deterring foreign invasions. And now that Kim has a missile that can hit every part of the United States, it’s unlikely he’ll want to give up the weapons.
But these diplomats seem to think there are ways to push North Korea to the negotiating table. One of the proposals for discussion at the meeting is that the US and its allies should start intercepting ships headed for North Korea. That would help cut off trade with other countries, thereby starving the regime of money. It’s unclear as of now if countries will accept the proposal.
The move would fit nicely in the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure and engagement” campaign against North Korea. The US has led a global effort to impose biting sanctions on North Korea in order to deny it funds for its nuclear program, but there are still no signs that Kim will consider stopping his program.
Here is another news from the new york times.
— Across the military, officers and troops are quietly preparing for a war they hope will not come.
At Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month, a mix of 48 Apache gunships and Chinook cargo helicopters took off in an exercise that practiced moving troops and equipment under live artillery fire to assault targets. Two days later, in the skies above Nevada, 119 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division parachuted out of C-17 military cargo planes under cover of darkness in an exercise that simulated a foreign invasion.
Next month, at Army posts across the United States, more than 1,000 reserve soldiers will practice how to set up so-called mobilization centers that move military forces overseas in a hurry. And beginning next month with the Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, the Pentagon plans to send more Special Operations troops to the Korean Peninsula, an initial step toward what some officials said ultimately could be the formation of a Korea-based task force similar to the types that are fighting in Iraq and Syria. Others said the plan was strictly related to counterterrorism efforts.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both argue forcefully for using diplomacy to address Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. A war with North Korea, Mr. Mattis said in August, would be “catastrophic.” Still, about two dozen current and former Pentagon officials and senior commanders said in interviews that the exercises largely reflected the military’s response to orders from Mr. Mattis and service chiefs to be ready for any possible military action on the Korean Peninsula.
The Trump White House
The historic moments, head-spinning developments and inside-the-White House intrigue.
President Trump’s own words have left senior military leaders and rank-and-file troops convinced that they need to accelerate their contingency planning.
Photo
During the 82nd Airborne exercise in Nevada last month, Army soldiers practiced moving paratroopers on helicopters and flew artillery, fuel and ammunition deep behind what was designated as enemy lines. Credit U.S. Army
In perhaps the most incendiary exchange, in a September speech at the United Nations, Mr. Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if it threatened the United States, and derided the rogue nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Rocket Man.” In response, Mr. Kim said he would deploy the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States, and described Mr. Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has since cooled, following a fresh attempt at détente between Pyongyang and Seoul. In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump was quoted as saying, “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” despite their mutual public insults. But the president said on Sunday that The Journal had misquoted him, and that he had actually said “I’d probably have” a good relationship if he wanted one.
A false alarm in Hawaii on Saturday that set off about 40 minutes of panic after a state emergency response employee mistakenly sent out a text alert warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack underscored Americans’ anxiety about North Korea.
A Conventional Mission
After 16 years of fighting insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, American commanding generals worry that the military is better prepared for going after stateless groups of militants than it is for its own conventional mission of facing down heavily fortified land powers that have their own formidable militaries and air defenses.
The exercise at Fort Bragg was part of one of the largest air assault exercises in recent years. The practice run at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada used double the number of cargo planes for paratroopers as was used in past exercises.
The Army Reserve exercise planned for next month will breathe new life into mobilization centers that have been largely dormant as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down. And while the military has deployed Special Operations reaction forces to previous large global events, like the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, those units usually numbered around 100 — far fewer than some officials said could be sent for the Olympics in South Korea. Others discounted that possibility.
At a wide-ranging meeting at his headquarters on Jan. 2, Gen. Tony Thomas, the head of the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., warned the 200 civilians and service members in the audience that more Special Forces personnel might have to shift to the Korea theater from the Middle East in May or June, if tensions escalate on the peninsula. The general’s spokesman, Capt. Jason Salata, confirmed the account provided to The New York Times by someone in the audience, but said General Thomas made it clear that no decisions had been made
The Army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, in several recent meetings at the Pentagon, has brought up two historic American military disasters as a warning of where a lack of preparedness can lead.
Military officials said General Milley has cited the ill-fated Battle of the Kasserine Pass during World War II, when unprepared American troops were outfoxed and then pummeled by the forces of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel of Germany. General Milley has also recently mentioned Task Force Smith, the poorly equipped, understrength unit that was mauled by North Korean troops in 1950 during the Korean War.
In meeting after meeting, the officials said, General Milley has likened the two American defeats to what he warns could happen if the military does not get ready for a possible war with North Korea. He has urged senior Army leaders to get units into shape, and fretted about a loss of what he has called muscle memory: how to fight a large land war, including one in which an established adversary is able to bring sophisticated air defenses, tanks, infantry, naval power and even cyberweapons into battle.
Speaking in October at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army, General Milley called Pyongyang the biggest threat to American national security, and said that Army officers who lead operational units must prepare to meet that threat.
“Do not wait on orders and printed new regulations and new manuals,” General Milley told the audience. “Put simply, I want you to get ready for what might come, and do not do any tasks that do not directly contribute to increasing combat readiness in your unit.”
His concerns have drifted down to the Army’s rank and file. And troops at bases and posts around the world routinely wonder aloud if they will soon be deployed to the Korean Peninsula.
But unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, when the Pentagon had already begun huge troop movements in 2002 to prepare for the invasion that began in 2003, military officials insist that this is not a case of a war train that has left the station.
Operation Panther Blade
In the case of the 82nd Airborne exercise in Nevada last month, for instance, Army soldiers practiced moving paratroopers on helicopters and flew artillery, fuel and ammunition deep behind what was designated as enemy lines. The maneuvers were aimed at forcing an enemy to fight on different fronts early in combat.
Officials said maneuvers practiced in the exercise, called Panther Blade, could be used anywhere, not just on the Korean Peninsula. “Operation Panther Blade is about building global readiness,” said Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a public affairs officer with the 82nd Airborne. “An air assault and deep attack of this scale is very complex and requires dynamic synchronization of assets over time and space.”
Another exercise, called Bronze Ram, is being coordinated by the shadowy Joint Special Operations Command, officials said, and mimics other training scenarios that mirror current events.
This year’s exercise, one of many that concentrate on threats from across the world, will focus extensively on underground operations and involve working in chemically contaminated environments that might be present in North Korea. It will also home in on the Special Operations Command’s mission of countering weapons of mass destruction.
Beyond Bronze Ram, highly classified Special Operations exercises in the United States, including those with scenarios to seize unsecured nuclear weapons or conduct clandestine paratrooper drops, have for several months reflected a possible North Korea contingency, military officials said, without providing details, because of operational sensitivity.
Air Force B-1 bombers flying from Guam have been seen regularly over the Korean Peninsula amid the escalating tensions with Pyongyang — running regular training flights with Japanese and South Korean fighter jets that often provoke North Korea’s ire. B-52 bombers based in Louisiana are expected to join the B-1s stationed on Guam later this month, adding to the long-range aerial firepower.
Pentagon officials said last week that three B-2 bombers and their crews had arrived in Guam from their base in Missouri.
Photo
Cho Myoung-gyon, the South Korean unification minister, left, and his North Korean counterpart, Ri Son-kwon, on Tuesday. Credit Yonhap, via Associated Press
But unlike the very public buildup of forces in the run-up to the 1991 Persian Gulf war and the 2003 Iraq war, which sought to pressure President Saddam Hussein of Iraq into a diplomatic settlement, the Pentagon is seeking to avoid making public all its preparations for fear of inadvertently provoking a response by Mr. Kim, North Korea’s leader.
Last week, diplomats from North Korea and South Korea met for the first time in two years in a sign of thawing tensions. On Tuesday, Canada and the United States will host a meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, of foreign ministers from countries that supported the United Nations-backed effort to repel North Korean forces after the 1950 invasion of South Korea. The ministers are seeking to advance the diplomatic initiative forged by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson.
It is a balance that Mr. Mattis and senior commanders are trying to strike in showing that the military, on the one hand, is ready to confront any challenge that North Korea presents, even as they strongly back diplomatic initiatives led by Mr. Tillerson to resolve the crisis.
An exchange this month illustrated perfectly the fine line the Pentagon is walking, as an Air Force three-star general caught her colleague emphasizing military prowess perhaps a tad too much, and gently guided him back.
During a briefing with reporters on Capitol Hill, Lt. Gen. Mark C. Nowland was asked whether the Air Force was prepared to take out North Korean air defenses.
“If you’re asking us, are we ready to fight tonight, the answer is, yes, we will,” General Nowland, the Air Force’s top operations officer, responded. “The United States Air Force, if required, when called to do our job, will gain and maintain air supremacy.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Lt. Gen. VeraLinn Jamieson, the Air Force’s top intelligence officer, interrupted.
“I’ll also add that right now, the Defense Department is in support of Secretary of State Tillerson, who’s got
a campaign to be the lead with North Korea in a diplomatic endeavor,” General Jamieson said.
General Nowland quickly acknowledged in a follow-up question that the military was in support of Mr. Tillerson’s diplomatic push. so what next? only God know it.
something is gonna happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment