Tabnak – Three days after a US missile strike hit a Syrian airbase, marking the first important foreign military operation of Donald Trump administration, a US navy strike group is heading to the Korean Peninsula. Now the question is that should we anticipate new US military adventure?
A CNN report published earlier today indicates that a US aircraft carrier-led strike group is headed toward the Western Pacific Ocean near the Korean Peninsula. The move of the Vinson strike group is in response to recent North Korean provocations, a US defense official said.
The move will raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a US missile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as putting Pyongyang on warning over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
This is while North Korea denounced Thursday’s strike as an act of "intolerable aggression” and one that justified "a million times over” the North’s push toward a credible nuclear deterrent.
Defense News website notes that the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and her strike group have been ordered to cancel planned visits to Australia and head back to Korean waters, the U.S. Navy announced Saturday night. The carrier was already operating in the western Pacific and had just visited Singapore.
The Vinson strike group is under the operational control of the Navy’s San Diego-based Third Fleet, a departure from the standard command structure of having the Japan-based US Seventh Fleet control U.S. ships in the western Pacific. The move, dubbed the Third Fleet Forward Initiative, is intended to increase complexity by giving potential opponents more commanders to outguess.
The Third Fleet is commanded by Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, reporting to the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Pacific Fleet in turn reports to Adm. Harry Harris, commander of US Pacific Command, who ordered the Vinson group north.
On the other hand, news of the carrier move comes just after a summit meeting between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where North Korea was one of the top data-x-items on the agenda.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump and Xi agreed on the "urgency of the threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons program" and agreed to work together to resolve the issue "peacefully."
On Wednesday, North Korea test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile from its eastern port of Sinpo into the Sea of Japan. BBC notes that the test came a month after four ballistic missiles were fired towards the Sea of Japan, moves that provoked a furious reaction by Japan.
On its part, North Korea says it is provoked by military exercises between the US and South Korea, which it sees as preparation for an invasion.
The US Treasury recently slapped sanctions on 11 North Korean business representatives and one company, while US politicians overwhelmingly backed a bill relisting the North as a state sponsor of terror. However, it’s still unclear whether US wants to upgrade its actions against North Korea and increase the level of military threat against the country.
