Report: U.S. Military Considering Shooting Down North Korea Missile Tests

The United States is considering military options to shoot down North Korea missile tests, according to a new report from The Guardian.

Currently, the USS Carl Vinson is making its way towards the peninsula, along with two other carriers. As such, it appears the Pentagon is determining whether or not how far they are willing to go to denuclearize North Korea ahead of their anticipated sixth nuclear test.

As The Guardian reports, Gen. Mattis is determining whether or not he is willing to shoot down a missile test or a launch site.

Many experts warn that such an action would risk an escalation the United States may not be able to control long term, even if they currently have the support of China.

“I would see such an action as escalatory, but I couldn’t guess how Kim Jong-un would interpret it,” said Abraham Denmark, the senior Pentagon policy official for Asia in Barack Obama’s administration.

“But I would be concerned he would feel the need to react strongly, as he would not want to appear weak.”

As reported by Zero Hedge:

Both sources said the military was not looking to use the high-profile missile-defense system the US is providing to South Korea, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad). Thaad’s 200km range and sophisticated radar have unnerved China, whose president, Xi Jinping, has been coaxed by Trump into pressuring North Korea.

In the past, several US administrations have considered shooting down North Korean missile tests, only to turn away from the option when considering the consequences of escalation against an unpredictable and bellicose adversary. Rumors have circulated since Trump took office that he has been mulling a shoot-down.

U.S. officials have conveyed that, ultimately, North Korea’s recklessness puts them in a tough position to forecast how they will respond if the U.S. does use missiles to take out their nuclear capabilities.

“If the U.S. is reckless enough to use military means, from that very day, there will be all out war. Our nuclear weapons protect us from that threat,” Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol told the BBC’s John Sudworth.

“We’ll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” he threatened. He said that an “all-out war” would result if the U.S. took military action.

Robert Kelly, an associate professor at South Korea’s Pusan National University, said: “North Korea is banned from testing missiles by the UN, so in that sense, we should be shooting all of them down. But instead, the world has turned a blind eye. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to shoot down a test missile, as an attack on North Korea itself would be too provocative.”

Ross, the Pentagon spokesman, called on North Korea to abandon “provocative, destabilizing actions and rhetoric” and for China to use its “unique influence” to compel Pyongyang to abandon its illicit weapons.

“Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, is ironclad,” he said.

North Korea could very well end up being Trump’s defining foreign policy moment just like Syria was for Obama.

Obama’s legacy will forever have the failure of Syria on it, and we are still dealing with his inaction today.

North Korea has a zero percent chance of ever defeating the United States. Trump needs to understand that before he launches missiles at a country prepared to risk it all just to prove a point.