U.S Armada threat premature?
Multiple United States officials starting from the top, President Trump, who said "we're sending an armada," to the Vice-President Mike Pence, to officials in the Defence Department, including the national security advisor Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster we're publicly answering questions about the armada's position, despite not having the right information in the first place.
Now the part that we were not being told was that the Uss Carl Vinson and the three other warships in its strike force were in that moment actually sailing in the opposite direction to do a joint military exercise with the Australian Navy in the Indian Ocean 3,500 miles South-West of the Korean Peninsula.
This information probably would never have been known if the navy hadn't posted a photo online on Monday of the Carl Vinson sailing South through the Sunda Strait, which separates the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. The photo was taken on Saturday, four days after Sean Spicer the White House press secretary described it's mission in the sea of Japan.
White house officials said that they were relying on information from the defence department who in turn blamed it on an ill-timed announcement of the deployment by the military Pacific Command to a partially erroneous explanation by the defence secretary Jim Matis. This all came together to form the false statement that a flotilla was racing towards the Korean peninsula.
The real situation at the moment.
The USS Carl Vinson and three other ships were now finally on Tuesday heading towards the Korean peninsula and are expected to reach their location soonest next month. Spokesperson to the Pentagon Dana White told the New York Times, "the ship is now moving North to the Western Pacific. This should have been communicated more clearly at the time."
Joe Wit a co-founder of the 38North programme of the U.S-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University, which took pictures of the North Korean nuclear test site on Mt. Mantap over the weekend, showing continuous activity which created an atmosphere of anticipated fear of nuclear tests by the North expected to take place during their celebration of the day of the sun this past weekend, in which no tests were done, only a failed missile test on the next day.
He said the confusion was "very perplexing" and fed into North Korea's narrative that America is all bluster and doesn't follow through on threats. He said that if they are going to threaten the North, they better make sure their threat is credible, otherwise, it will undermine whatever the policy is towards them.
In July 2010, President Barack Obama ordered aircraft carrier Geroge Washington to the sea of Japan as a show of force against the North after they had torpedoed a South Korean Navy corvette killing 46 sailors.
Suggestions by defence secretary Robert, M. Gates to reroute the vessel to the Yellow Sea so as to give an additional message to China was declined by the president.
On the other hand, President Trump's aides have given him praise for his unpredictability, as they believe it's what's needed to deal with rogue leaders in North Korea and Syria. South Korea has fears of a war breaking out and are depending on help from the West and were again assured by Vice-President Pence during his visit to South Korea over the weekend. The arrival of the Armada would help reassure the South Korean's fears.
North Korea, however, is not taking the threat lightly with its leader Kim Jong-un stating fiery warnings and threatening to conduct weekly missile tests.
