Dear Members and Friends,
In a dispatch from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency yesterday
“The only way for defending the sovereignty of our nation and its right to existence under the present extreme situation is to bolster up nuclear force both in quality and quantity” … “the need to get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired any moment.”
In light of this highly provocative statement and escalating rhetoric by North Korea to use nuclear weapons and as the United States and the Republic of Korea participate in their annual military exercises on the Korean Peninsula to counter North Korea which they have done since the Armistice of the Korean War, there have been several statements by the United States Government and members of Congress.
Pentagon:
“We are aware of the reports. We are closely monitoring the situation on the Korean Peninsula in coordination with our regional allies,” the Pentagon said in response to Friday’s news. “We urge North Korea to refrain from provocative actions that aggravate tensions and instead focus on fulfilling its international obligations and commitments.”
Senator Cruz:
”The news is very disturbing that Kim Jong-un has put their nuclear weapons on ready state. I’m glad that we’re sending another carrier group to the South China Sea. I’m glad that Congress passed sanctions on North Korea.
We — we need to be putting in place missile defense, such as the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea.
We need to be pursuing space-based missile defense. One of the advantages of space-based missile defense is that if you have a missile launch in North Korea or you have a missile launch in Iran, a space-based missile defense can take out one or two or three missiles before it can cross over and do damage.”
To better clarify and understand the Nation’s national security issues that drive the Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spoke earlier this week in Seattle at Microsoft highlighting the direction.
“I want to give you a sense of what we’re focused on these days in the Pentagon. There are no fewer than five central evolving – central challenges that drive our planning now in the Defense Department – our planning, our budgeting, our activities, our operations – namely, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and terrorism. And I’ll briefly describe each of them to you this morning before I go more deeply into the issues that I know are top of mind for this community.
The first two of those challenges, China and Russia, reflect in a way a return to great power competition. One is in Europe, where we’re taking a strong – have to take a strong and balanced approach to deterring Russian aggression on the continent of the kind we’ve seen.
Second challenge is in the Asia-Pacific, the single most consequential region of the world to America’s future – half of humanity, half of the economy, only growing; where China is rising, which is fine, but behaving aggressively, which is not.
Meanwhile, two other longstanding challenges pose threats to specific regions. North Korea is one, and that’s why our forces, and we never take our eye off this, our forces on the Korean peninsula remain ready, as their slogan goes, to fight tonight – not something we want to do, but something we’re ready to do.
And the other is Iran, because while the nuclear accord is a good deal in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, we must still deter Iranian aggression and check Iranian malign influence in the region, and protect allies and friends, including especially Israel.
The fifth challenge, very different from the four and critically important, is our ongoing fight against terrorism, especially ISIL, which must be and will be dealt a lasting defeat, most immediately, in its parent tumor in Iraq and Syria where we’re accelerating our campaign in every dimension, including cyber, by the way, as well as where ISIL’s is metastasizing around the world. We’re doing it in North Africa. We’re also doing that in Afghanistan, where we continue to stand with the Afghan government and people to counter ISIL and Al Qaeda. And at the same time, all the while we’re continuing to work with other government agencies on protecting our homeland and protecting our people here.
We don’t have the luxury of choosing among these five challenges. We have to deal with them all. But we do have the ability to set a course for the future – a future that’s uncertain, but that will certainly be competitive and demanding of America’s leadership, our values, our military edge.”
