At America’s Largest Overseas Military Base, Tension Ratchets Up With the Outbreak of War in the Middle East

CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea – North Korean threats to inflict a “first strike” on American forces in South Korea places this sprawling base 60 miles below the North-South line in the crosshairs of the North’s atomic bombs and missiles a week after Hamas’ onslaught against Israel.Here at America’s largest overseas military base, a video in the base museum glorifies American and South Korean troops staving off North Korean and Chinese invasion in the Korean War that ended more than 70 years ago.“Ready To fight tonight” is one of the slogans emblazoned in the video.The tension here seems all the more pronounced since North Korea praises Hamas’ terror attack on Israel and threatens to strike the United States Ship Ronald Reagan, dispatched to South Korea after another aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, steamed to the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Israel. Just as the Gerald Ford buttresses defenses against Palestinian Arab terrorists, so the arrival of the Ronald Reagan at the port of Busan reminds North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un of what to expect if he fulfills his vows to rain death and destruction on the South.Around the headquarters of the combined U.S. Forces Korea and United Nations Command, which moved here five years ago from the historic Yongsan base in Seoul, the rhetoric from the North arouses concerns even if an attack does not seem imminent.As Israeli troops readied to move into Gaza, North Korea boasted of its decision to conduct a “rapid first strike” against the Americans, most of them stationed here and in the nearby Osan Air Base, headquarters of the Seventh United States Air Force.The Ronald Reagan, on a five-day mission to Busan, on Korea’s southeastern coast, inspired the latest torrent of North Korean rhetoric against a “provocation” that it might counter with a “first strike” — that is, an attack before the Americans had a chance to strike first.Although the nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, there’s no confirmation that any are in the arsenal on board, and none of its planes carry atomic bombs. The ship is basically on a show of strength, designed to dissuade Mr. Kim from whatever ideas he may have gotten from Hamas’ onslaught in Israel.The North’s propaganda machine went into overdrive with Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency warning of a “powerful and rapid first strike” against “the bases of evil in the Korean peninsula and its vicinity” — meaning North Korean missiles might strike bases in Japan as well as South Korea.

At America’s Largest Overseas Military Base, Tension Ratchets Up With the Outbreak of War in the Middle East

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