With a new focus on North Korea after a recent ballistic missile test, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with foreign ministers in Bonn, Germany, pledging the whole of the US military, including its massive nuclear arsenal, to the defense of Japan and South Korea.
Tillerson issued a statement following the meeting insisting the US would remain “steadfast” in its defensive commitments, and that the “full range” of both its conventional and nuclear arsenals are available for the defense of the two Pacific nations.
The pledge isn’t actually a new one, as the Obama Administration at similarly played up its extension of America’s “nuclear umbrella” over Japan and South Korea during their own intermittent rows with North Korea. Tillerson’s comments appear just to be a reiteration of this stance.
Such reiterations are likely to be common in the Trump Administration, with a lot of speculation following President Trump’s election that long-standing military commitments would be revised. So far those changes haven’t amounted to much, though they have been played up by administration officials at times to try to coax policy actions by allies.
These countries were under the US nuclear umbrella since the 1950’s.
It’s a prerequisite that Americans believe that Kim is crazy in order to make any sense of this. And there’s little doubt that they’re probably sold on that idea because of the millions of bucks worth of hate propaganda spent on them to make them believers.
He’s not!
A thorough discussion on that point alone with be a very useful use of space on this thread. That is, providing that Americans who are truly antiwar, are also convinced that it’s nothing but demonization of Kim and he’s completely in his right mind.
In fact, more in his right mind than Iran’s government simply because he’s smart enough to be proactive.
Anybody?
Big things come out of small starts and that’s pretty well what this antiwar site is all about. Right?
This is news? it must come as a shock for the Koreans and Japanese to find out that the US wasn’t going to be defending them like they were told for the past 60 years.
Or is this a reminder to the Norks – in case they’ve forgotten what the 37th parallel thing is all about?