Top US general in South Korea as crisis brews

SEOUL — The United States’ top general will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in today, just days after the US President said military options against North Korea were “locked and loaded”.

General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who arrived in South Korea yesterday, will meet senior defence officials along with Mr Moon, according to an official at South Korea’s Blue House who asked not to be identified.

The general will head to China next on the previously scheduled visit, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unidentified military official.

Speaking to reporters en route to South Korea, Gen Dunford said that the US armed forces’ “primary focus” is supporting the Donald Trump administration’s economic and diplomatic campaign to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, while readying military plans should that campaign fail, according to the Voice of America news portal.

The general also said that his visit to the region seeks to reassure allies Tokyo and Seoul and build military-to-military ties with Beijing to prevent any miscalculation.

“We’re all looking to get out of this situation without a war,” Gen Dunford noted, adding that a nuclear-armed North Korea that threatens America and its regional allies is “unacceptable”.

He had said last month that it was “unimaginable” to allow North Korea to develop the capability to strike a US city with a nuclear weapon.

The visit to the region by President Donald Trump’s top military adviser underlines heightened tensions after a week in which North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and the US leader exchanged threats. China’s President Xi Jinping told Mr Trump in a call on Saturday that all sides should maintain restraint and avoid inflammatory comments.

The call between Mr Trump and Mr Xi also came as Japan deployed on Saturday Patriot missile-defence systems in western areas of the country, following a threat by North Korea to fire missiles over Japan towards the US territory of Guam.

Mr Trump recently stepped up warnings that the Kim regime would face a devastating military strike if it continued threatening the US.

He said in a tweet on Friday that American military options were “locked and loaded” if Mr Kim acted unwisely.

He also said that if Mr Kim makes any “overt threat” or strike at a US territory or ally, “he will truly regret it, and he will regret it fast”.

Despite Mr Trump’s rhetoric, Washington has not taken any public steps to prepare for hostilities such as evacuating Americans from Seoul, which is within range of North Korean artillery, or moving ships, aircraft or troops into position for an imminent response. The US has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea.

Dr Terence Roehrig, a national security affairs professor at the US Naval War College, said that Mr Trump’s posture suggested he was trying to dissuade Mr Kim from further provocations rather than setting the stage for a US military strike.

“The President’s rhetoric could be aimed at China, but it is aimed largely at North Korea, trying to deter them,” Dr Roehrig said. “North Koreans are not suicidal. They may continue launching missile tests, but they don’t want a war, and the US doesn’t want military action either.”

Mr Jamil Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, noted that Mr Trump’s “muscular response” to North Korea was “the exact type of resolve we need to force the hand” of Pyongyang’s “Chinese patrons”.

Mr Trump’s “firm break with 20-plus years of failed American policy on North Korea represents the one chance we might have to forestall a massive conflict on the Korean peninsula,” Mr Jaffer said.

He added that China and North Korea understand that Mr Trump “is actually prepared to use military force — credibility that prior administrations simply lacked”.

Analysts say that further escalation is expected in the coming days as both North and South Korea celebrate the 72nd anniversary of the end of Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula tomorrow, and as Seoul conducts joint military exercises with Washington from Aug 21. Japan will also hold annual military drills with the US over the next few weeks.

“Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo said yesterday that he would not be surprised if Pyongyang launched another missile. “He (Mr Kim) conducted two tests in July, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was another missile test,” he told Fox News Sunday. AGENCIES