The top US military officer said on Monday that the US wants to peacefully resolve a deepening standoff with North Korea but is also ready to use the ‘full range’ of its military capabilities in case of provocation.
The comments by Marine Corps Gen Joseph Dunford in a series of meetings with senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media appeared to be an attempt to ease anxiety over tit-for-tat threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea while also showing a willingness to back up Trump’s warnings if need be.
Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which Trump declared the US military ‘locked and loaded’ and said he was ready to unleash ‘fire and fury’ if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.
North Korea, meanwhile, has threatened to lob four intermediate-range missiles into the waters near Guam, a tiny US territory about 3,200 kilometres from Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
This would be a deeply provocative act from the US perspective, and there has been widespread debate about whether Washington would try to shoot the missiles down if they’re fired.