- In response to North Korea’s test launch of a new nuclear ballistic missile, the United States dispatched a bomber to Northeast Asia on Sunday for a trilateral flying drill with its allies.
- Following North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s observation of Thursday’s launch of the Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the nation’s largest rocket and its longest nuclear missile test, the alliance drill, which also included South Korea and Japan, was conducted.
- Japan calculated that the Hwasong-19 could fly over 9,320 miles, which could deliver a nuclear strike to the mainland United States if it launched on a normal trajectory, even if the missile took a steep vertical path to avoid other nations’ sovereign airspace.
- Japan and South Korea do not possess nuclear weapons. They are protected by Washington’s resolve to deter and respond to both nuclear and non-nuclear scenarios in defense of Seoul and Tokyo, which is known as the “nuclear umbrella” or U.S. extended deterrence.
- From its home base at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, nicknamed the Lancer, was dispatched to airspace east of the South Korean island of Jeju, which is located west of Japan’s major island of Kyushu and south of the Korean Peninsula.
- In a critical security context, the U.S. military asserted that this exercise allowed for an instant reaction to regional security issues. In a statement released on Sunday, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Public Affairs stated, “Our three nations maintain an absolute commitment to the shared vision of a secure, rules-based, and open Indo-Pacific region.”
Source:
newsweek
