North Korea claims it is considering strikes near US military installations in Guam.
It is understood that the strikes would be with its intermediate range ballistic missiles, state news agency KCNA reported.
The threat came hours after US President Donald Trump threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury” over its missile programme and days after the UN Security Council levied new sanctions on North Korea over its growing nuclear arsenal.
Pyongyang said it’s “now carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
NATO also called for a firm international response to North Korea’s missile launch which the western alliance condemned as a threat to security in east Asia and the wider world.
“North Korea’s missile programs and provocative actions necessitate a firm response from the international community,” the 26-nation alliance said in a statement.
We call on North Korea to cease immediately the development of long-range missiles and reconfirm its moratorium on all long-range missile launches.”
The alliance said North Korea’s development and use of ballistic missiles “pose a serious threat to the region and to the international community at large.”
The European Union echoed similar concerns and also condemned North Korea.
I’m struggling to see how this will play put.
It’s scary this time because Donald Trump is in charge, he’s irrational and you can’t predict what he will say or do next, that’s not to say he will order a strike because he will be advised against it. But what could happen is if he moves another fleet towards the Korean peninsula or just a further build up of US forces as a show of force or trying to bring N Korea to the negotiating table. Then N Korea might attack fearing invasion or an attack on themselves.
Keep struggling.
The most likely outcome is always ‘do nothing’.
Path of least resistance and all that.
If Trump is smart he will what his predecessors did & do absolutely nothing.
The world has sat and watched as NK slowly and surely progressed its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes & not done a thing about it.
Trump should steer clear of it like Bush & Obama did.
Funny how the newly elected liberal SK president’s plan for peace talks with the North have gone quiet.
Same as Trump’s peace talks with the Kremlin then? It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone anymore, that peace talks aren’t going ahead as planned. There are still too many people who won’t let leaders talk to “the enemy”.
Storm in a teacup.
Are the North Koreans that stupid?? Was Russia that stupid? MAD should apply to the north as it did to the superpowers in the Cold War.
NK may not be that stupid as a whole but their leader seems a little unhinged! With him squaring up to Trump who knows where it will lead.
The most likely outcome is that nothing will happen but the threat cannot be ignored. A miscalculation by one of these hot heads could quite easily lead to shots being fired, if only to bolster their own egos in the face of provocation.