Wall Street Journal: North Korea Backs Off Guam Missile-Attack Threat
Kim Jong Un warns he could change his mind if the U.S. persists in ‘extremely dangerous reckless actions’.
SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided not to launch a threatened missile attack on Guam, Pyongyang’s state media reported on Tuesday, but warned that he could change his mind “if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions.”
(For a deeper analysis of the issues in this story, please see “North Korea Backs Off Threat to Hit Guam”)
The report, published early Tuesday, could help dial back tensions that had spiraled last week following an exchange of threats between North Korea and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump warned Pyongyang last week that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” and could engulf the North in “fire and fury,” while North Korea, through its state media, had threatened to fire four missiles in a bid to surround the U.S. territory of Guam in “enveloping fire.”
North Korean state media said in its report Tuesday that Mr. Kim had made his decision not to fire on Guam after visiting a military command post and examining a military plan presented to him by his senior officers.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Did China read Kim Jong-Un the "riot act" .... or did he decide on his own. My guess is a combination of both.
9 comments:
Or did the United States offer incentive behind the scenes?
Does it matter?
North Korea will consider this as a victory regardless...
What we have here is an unprecedented moment for the American establishment (unless you count Cuban Missile Crisis) when a sovereign state is actively painting a US territory in its sights coupled with threats to attack said territory with strategic assets.
Did he blink? Maybe. Does it matter? No. North Korea is in a viable position to which it can use Guam as a means to try and influence American behavior.
Whether or not they do, is another thing. Trump will be trump, but he may cool his heels a little.
The fact that North Korea was allowed to get this far in its missile program is maddening.
This is a north Korean failure, Trump called his bluff,Kim folded.
30% of Guam is covered in US Military installations/bases. The full spectrum of Patriot/Aegis/THAAD is deployed on and around the territory.
NK would have better luck if they rowed a warhead over.
Time is all part of war and its on noth Koreans side
I suspect it was a combination of China reading the "riot act" as you call it and some type of incentives offered to China to get them to go along. As I predicted we would, we appear to have avoided hot war THIS TIME. With that said we are not "out of the woods yet" as the expression goes. There is still MUCH that can go wrong.
So here's my thoughts:
I don't think we can tell any country by force what they are allowed to have and not have. If North Korea wants nuclear weapons, then we can use sanctions etc to disincentive them.. we have. They march on. What's different is the reckless propaganda arm of North Korea producing videos of showing US cities engulfed in nuclear flames. That's coming from them. It's not okay. It's as if I'm slowly raising a gun to your head and in videos show you how I'll blow your brains out. Will you wait for me? Because until I do it, I have done no bodily harm. I might have transgressed a few lines regarding my threat to you, but we don't have bodily harm laws between countries. So... of North Korea would conduct itself like other nuclear nations and not threaten us, we would act differently. But they have. We were warned. What now? All just a joke until it's not?
Anonymous,
My thoughts exactly. There's very little I could add. As I have stated before, if a person/country has every reason to believe they are about to be attacked they may attack preemptively rather than absorb a crushing blow or blows and then respond. If this type of propaganda were directed against pretty much anyone else with the possible exception of Israel, the world would be outraged. In this case, the world wide response is almost ho hum. It's as if genocide against Americans is okay.
B Poster, l agree if Iran was threatening to launch missiles at u.s bases or Nuke the mainland the response would be anything but muted.
Iran actually goes out of its way to stress that it's missile capability are of deterrence value only, l believe them.
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