American, Korean and Japanese Forces Play War Games at Sea While Seoul Mulls Aiding Against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz

South Korea is joining American and Japanese ships in critical air and naval exercises while the South’s President Lee Jae-myung considers whether to support President Trump in the Strait of Hormuz and, like Mr. Trump, looks for dialogue with the North.Just by thinking of sending ships to the Persian Gulf region, Mr. Lee is shifting from his earlier refusal to support the Americans after Mr. Trump ordered the bombing of targets in Iran. It was partly for that reason that Mr. Trump drastically cut last month’s annual military exercises with South Korea.That was then. Now, Mr. Lee looks as though he’s coming around to Mr. Trump on Iran. Unlike last month, Mr. Trump is not curtailing the current war games as South Korean, Japanese and American ships and planes maneuver in exercises that resemble those that he cut off last month.Destroyers from all three countries are churning the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan in a prelude to what North Korea’s defense minister Kim Song-ki claims would be “the largest-scale joint military exercises of the Orient Shield” — a reference to separate war games with Japan and Australia.Such “trilateral military cooperation,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency quoted the minister as saying, formed “a dangerous, aggressive entity with nuclear elements.” North Korea, he vowed, would take “strong, reflexive countermeasures from a position of power.”Coincidentally or not, Kim Jong-un, his daughter Ju-ae at his side, presided Sunday at the east coast port of Wonsan, near one of his favorite palaces, over the commissioning of a 5,000-ton guided-missile destroyer theoretically capable of firing nuclear warheads.The commissioning of the North’s second destroyer “represents a major leap forward in the modernization of North Korea’s surface fleet, bringing it closer to contemporary naval standard,” said the website Naval News. “The ship “is equipped with modern electronic systems, including a comprehensive electronic warfare suite and four fixed-face phased-array radar panels.”The ceremony, before several thousand sailors and a marching band, came a year after the vessel had tumbled lop-sided at its launch as Mr. Kim watched, furious and embarrassed by what he called a “criminal act.” This time around, there were no mistakes as he, in dark black, and his daughter, about 14, filling out a trim white suit, almost as tall as her rotund father, stood proudly on deck.The vessel would be capable of “annihilating retaliatory strikes,” Mr. Kim declared. “We must establish more clearly a powerful and reliable nuclear war deterrent, to put into practice the diverse and effective operation of our nuclear combat systems and further strengthen our military activities for maritime defense and war deterrence.”Against this show of North Korean strength, the specter of American forces conducting exercises with their Asian allies contrasts with impressions of Washington pulling back in its defense of the region.There is, however, one significant difference between this month’s war games and those last year: no American aircraft carrier is participating. Two of the navy’s eleven carriers are in the middle east and the rest are in port in America, several undergoing maintenance. The Abraham Lincoln, after five days’ respite for its 5,000 sailors and marines \in the raunchy Thai port of Pattaya, is on its way back to America from 286 days’ service in the middle east.If the absence of a carrier in Northeast Asia shows how stretched-out are American defences, the fact that South Korea’s President Lee is considering a role in the war with Iran represents a shift in America’s favor. Seoul’s Yonhap News reported the South’s foreign ministry is “communicating with relevant countries and the international community to help ensure the free passage of all vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.” South Korea reportedly wants to see if America’s NATO allies,Britain and France, are also going to pitch in.Iran has responded with predictable rage.“Dangerous Choices Come with Consequences,” is the English translation of a warning posted in Korean on the website of Iran’s foreign ministry, according to Yonhap. “Any other country’s military presence or participation in operations in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” said an Iranian spokesman, “can only be regarded as direct support for the party responsible for the aggression.”

American, Korean and Japanese Forces Play War Games at Sea While Seoul Mulls Aiding Against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz

American, Korean and Japanese Forces Play War Games at Sea While Seoul Mulls Aiding Against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz

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