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How U.S. Military Actions Could Play Out in North Korea - The New York Times

posted onAugust 12, 2017
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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — The intelligence could come to President Trump secretly and urgently: The North Koreans have placed another intercontinental missile on its launching pad. In less than two hours, it could be fueled and ready for launch on a test flight into the Pacific Ocean or perhaps on a mission to strike American territory. In that scenario, the American president could quickly set in motion a move long debated but never taken — a preventive military action inside Kim Jong-un, the country’s volatile leader. In a series of verbal warnings over the past several days, Mr. Trump has repeatedly raised the specter of military action toward North Korea. On Friday, he said on Twitter that “military solutions” were “locked and loaded,” retweeted a picture of a B-1 bomber based in Guam, and warned Mr. Kim. “If he utters one threat, in the form of an overt threat, which by the way he has been uttering for years, and his family has been uttering for years, or if he does anything with respect to Guam, or any place else that’s an American territory or an American ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast,” Mr. Trump told reporters. But at the same time, American war planners and diplomatic officials insist that no military action is imminent. Warships are not steaming toward North Korea. The secretary of state stopped in Hawaii to play golf on his way home from a trip abroad before meeting with Mr. Trump on Friday. None of the 200,000 or so Americans or thousand... Link to the full article to read more

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