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Amid Trump ambiguity on NKorea, is US practicing for war?

 
Published Oct. 13, 2017

WASHINGTON — Do the ominous rhetoric from President Donald Trump and repeated flights by U.S. strategic bombers over the Korean Peninsula mean Washington is readying for what many feel is unthinkable — a military conflict with a nuclear-armed North Korea that would put millions of civilians at risk?

U.S. B-1B bombers flew over South Korea this week with fighter jet escorts from the allied nation, in what's become an increasingly familiar show of force to Pyongyang. It came just days after Trump said "only one thing will work" with North Korea and referred, ambiguously, to "the calm before the storm" — remarks he said Friday referred to the North.

"We're totally prepared for numerous things," Trump told reporters Friday. "If something can happen where we negotiate, I'm always open to that," he said, changing tack from his recent comments disparaging the chances of successful talks with Pyongyang.

"But if it's going to be something other than negotiation, believe me we are ready, more so than we have ever been," he said.

White House chief of staff John Kelly said Thursday that North Korea can't be allowed to develop the ability to strike the United States, but the threat is "manageable" for now.

Jim Schoff, a former senior Pentagon adviser for East Asia policy, said it doesn't appear "U.S. policy-makers think we're on the brink of all-out war."

But he added that doesn't mean the administration is bluffing or has ruled out some kind of limited strike in response to a North Korean provocation. He said most telling were the repeated B1-B bomber flights, which he said were not intended just to signal U.S. resolve, but to practice making the long flight from the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam where they are based, and "to get a feel for what kind of air defenses North Korea has and how we see them react."

For now, there's little indication that either the U.S. or North Korea is preparing for a resumption of the 1950-53 Korean War, which devastated the peninsula.

North Korea, which suffers food shortages, is in the midst of a fall harvest, for which military manpower is needed. Civilians are not reported to be mobilizing for war. Addressing a ruling party meeting last weekend, leader Kim Jong Un railed against "U.S. imperialists," but the bulk of his speech was about the economy.