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By Kim Rahn
The U.S. military will send the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to the Korean Peninsula at the end of next month for scheduled exercises with the South Korean Navy to counter North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, according to defense officials of the two countries, Tuesday.
The deployment of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, along with the earlier show of force involving B-1B Lancer bombers off the North Korean coast, is expected to draw a strong backlash from Pyongyang and provocations in response.
According to the Ministry of National Defense, the USS Ronald Reagan strike group will conduct naval drills off the peninsula in late October.
It is not known how far the carrier striking group will go northward ― on Saturday, the B-1B bombers carried out exercises in international airspace near North Korea, and they flew further north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) than any other American warplanes in the 21st century.
CNN quoted two U.S. defense officials as saying that the exercises have long been prearranged and were not in response to the recent tension.
However, considering Pyongyang has condemned such exercises strongly in the past, the drills this time may prompt the North to conduct another missile or nuclear test as a protest.
The tension surrounding the peninsula has been escalating with bellicose rhetoric between the U.S. and North Korea: U.S. President Donald Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his regime "won't be around much longer," while the North's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho responded that such words were a "clear declaration of war" and his country will exercise self-defense, including the right to shoot down U.S. strategic bombers even if they don't fly into the country's airspace.
Besides the carrier strike group, an Aegis destroyer will conduct a separate drill off the peninsula with the South Korean Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force from the end of this month to early next month, according to the ministry.
