Mattis: Navy Strike Group Not Headed to North Korea for Any Reason

Russia Expresses Concern US May Attack North Korea

With a US carrier strike group steaming toward North Korea, and top administration officials talking up the need for the US to “solve” North Korea, Russian officials today echoed a concern shared by a lot of people, that the US is about to unilaterally attack North Korea.

Defense Secretary James Mattis sought to downplay those concerns, however, insisting the carrier strike group is just in the western Pacific in general, and isn’t speeding rapidly toward the Korean Peninsula for any particular reason, and has nothing in mind when it gets there.

It’s hard to imagine that this highly publicized move is just a whim, and even harder to believe that it is just coincidental with President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both talking up the idea of unilateral US action against North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.

That’s doubly true because President Trump told Fox Business that the “armada” was full of “very powerful” US warships, and had been sent there because North Korea is “looking for trouble,” and the US intends to “solve the problem.”

North Korea shrugged off the comments either way, insisting that they have substantial capabilities to retaliate against any US aggression against them, and that US military bases could face nuclear retaliation in the even of such a US attack.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.