Australia to join military drills with US, South Korea

Tensions began to tighten when the U.N. Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions against North Korea over its test launches of two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

Donald Trump's threat to rain "fire and fury" on North Korea as punishment for its military provocations is the epitome of irresponsible leadership.

Australia will join the annual US-South Korea military exercises next week following Pyongyang's decision to hold off its plan to attack Guam, Defence Minister Marise Payne said on Wednesday.

Reacting to the latest development, top United States officials have promised tough measures against the country and its war-mongering supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un, which may not preclude a military action.

Finally, Mr. Trump tweeted that USA military was "locked and loaded". China has also announced a ban on North Korea's coal, iron and seafood.

"And it looks like clearly he's, at least, verbally focused very specifically on the military options with the rhetoric that's out there", Mullen said.

The latest round of sabre-rattling is not unconnected with Pyongyang's usual military threats towards its immediate neighbours as well as the USA and the entire world. A USA senator, John McCain, a war veteran who heads the Senate Armed Forces Committee, has said that such statements are only made by a president who is ready to match his words with action. "It's kind of the classic Trump in that he overstates things". Whether President Trump believes it is unknown.

As for the intervention of China should hostilities break out, a state-owned newspaper warned that China won't come to North Korea's aid if it launches missiles threatening US soil and there is retaliation, but it would intervene if Washington strikes first. "The idea of a nuclear war with North Korea is just obscene". While the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikky Haley, warned of the inevitability of war if the regime continued its aggressive actions, the White House National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, stated clearly that the actions included launching a "preemptive war".

It seems that North Korea is hopeful for direct talks with the United States through the help of the Japanese government. Obama also somewhat downplayed North Korea's threats of preparation for a nuclear test. That does not make you strong. They have anxious that the spread of nuclear weapons will undermine USA alliances by allowing American adversaries to inflict unacceptable damage on American forces or the US homeland should Washington come to an ally's defense.

"[The U.S. doesn't] hesitate to use our military might to defend our allies and our way of life", the president added.

Some point to Trump's threats against North Korea as resulting in Kim's decision to step back from his own threat to launch missiles in the direction of Guam.

Bush accused North Korea in 2002 in his State of the Union address of being a regime that is "arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens". It has put Japan under its nuclear umbrella, meaning it could respond to any attack on Japan with atomic weapons.

- Anthony Cordesman of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies said South Korea's F-15 and F-16 fighter jets are far more capable than North Korea's outdated MiGs and Su-25 jets.

The agreement as never adhered to on North Korea's part and broke down in 2003.

Gen Dunford told reporters that he has advised the U.S. leadership not to dial back on the exercises with South Korea. China, with whom North Korea carries out 90 per cent of its trade, and Russian Federation are considered vital to any efforts to talk the country, already the most sanctioned in the world, out of its nuclear pursuit. In particular, the USA has never been especially good at dealing with the hardest cases - countries whose leadership believes that a nuclear deterrent represents the only reliable option for national defense and regime survival, and has therefore been willing to build the bomb no matter the cost.