As North Korea prepares to do missile launches and military exercises that may include its 6^th  nuclear test tomorrow (News article link) in the annual honor and celebration of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung’s birthday, profound messaging of overt strategic direct actions have been sent to North Korea.

• President Donald Trump meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (News article link)
• The United States preemptive action in the use of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike Syria and its air base for consequences of Assad’s chemical attack and atrocities he has made on his own people. (News article link)
• The United States announcement and movement of the United States Carl Vinson Strike Group, led by the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, to the seas off the Korean Peninsula. (News article link)
• The United States Vice President Mike Pence official visit to the Korean Peninsula and the Republic of Korea tomorrow. (News article link)
• The Chinese refusal of and forcing the return of North Korean coal ships (News article link)
• The United States first combat use of the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, the mother of all bombs, in Afghanistan (News article link)
• The United States National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s official visit to Afghanistan after MOAB use (News article link)

The most profound action following the Syria strike, was the display of a nuclear like capability in the first use of the MOAB in Afghanistan by the United States which appears like a nuclear blast and was not used in combat until now by the United States for fear of that perception. Propelling that profoundness was the location of Afghanistan for the first use – a central axis to Iran, China, Russia, and with effect on North Korea – and the post blast visit by the United States National Security Advisor.

Clearly the accumulation of United States accelerated actions and statements over the past week have the intended and most effect upon China. It is not in China’s national security interest, in the short term or long term, to risk a U.S. preemptive strike upon North Korea and the Korean Peninsula that extends from China. China is intertwined with North Korea and North Korea is completely dependent on China. (Link to news article on Chinese trade increase with North Korea). The fundamental Chinese National Security control of North Korea’s ballistic missiles and nuclear capability is secure, for China would have never enabled, nor continued its support of North Korean military technologies (Link to news article on private Chinese companies connection to North Korea’s missile program)

North Korea’s 6^th nuclear test is the mother of all calculations for China to contemplate and decide upon. As that calculation comes forward, the United States and Japan both have capacity and full confidence in their ballistic missile defense systems to defend their respective territories and populations from the current North Korean ballistic missile capability and inventory. The Republic of Korea does not have the same capacity and capability of ballistic missile defense as the United States and Japan to defend itself, nor its population from current North Korean ballistic missiles, but have enough to change the rational calculus of North Korea’s decision to launch. With all of this missile defense capability deployed between the three nations of the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States, missile defense is providing stability in this crucible of extreme tension that is enabling flexibility in the options for a peaceful de-escalation of the crisis.

China will resolve the North Korea problem and have great confidence in our nation’s ballistic missile defense as our Mother of NORTHCOM General Lori Robinson does (News article link) that will help provide stability enabling a peaceful resolution.