Trump Is Sending A Message And "Lil Kim" Should Listen

Trump admin deploys fighter jets in South Korea as show of U.S. strength

December 3, 2017

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After years of contending with a military depleted by a president who was more concerned with boosting social programs and waging war against dubiously rising temperatures, the U.S. Armed Forces are finally flexing their muscles.

In a massive show of American air superiority, the U.S. is sending advanced military aircraft, including six F-22 stealth jets, to participate in a four-day joint military exercise with South Korea. Some 230 U.S. and South Korean aircraft are expected to participate in the exercise, engaging in “simulated precision airstrikes on mock North Korean nuclear and missile targets.”

Vigilante Ace

The war games, dubbed “Vigilante Ace,” are planned for early December and include six of the Air Force’s sophisticated stealth fighter jets taking part in maneuvers meant to mimic an operation targeting North Korea’s ballistic missile program and nuclear infrastructure.

This mission is increasingly crucial following an intercontinental ballistic missile test from Pyongyang that demonstrated the communist state’s ability to target the U.S. eastern seaboard.

A report from South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency provides specifics of the expansive air exercise:

It will be the first time for six F-22 stealth fighter planes to fly over South Korea at one time. The U.S. also plans to send F-35A and F-35B stealth jets, F-16C fighter planes and others including an unspecified number of B-1B bombers. The South Korean Air Force will dispatch F-15K, KF-16 and F-5 fighter jets and other planes for the exercises with about 230 aircraft at eight U.S. and South Korean military installations being mobilized.

Some 12,000 American personnel are expected to participate in the joint maneuvers. 

Fighting back

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s strategy on the Korean Peninsula is to use his nuclear deterrent to force a U.S. withdrawal from South Korea, where U.S. military forces have been stationed for decades.

“While Kim Jong Un has already long had the tools to destroy South Korea effectively, he also believes it is necessary to drive American forces out of the peninsula,” a North Korean defector testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee just last month.

The joint exercises address this threat by demonstrating America’s resolve to defend the Asian ally. However, some of America’s detractors have questioned the judgment of military planners at a time when relations with Pyongyang are at a dismal low.

Playing the part of the persistent U.S. critic, Russian ambassador Sergei Lavrov accused the U.S. of conducting operations “to provoke” North Korea. “One gets the impression that everything was deliberately done to make Kim Jong Un lose his nerve and take another reckless action,” Lavrov said on Thursday.

Yet, Vigilante Ace is part of an annual training exercise that also occurred just last year, during less tense moments between the two countries.

“We have never sought war”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley dismissed accusations that President Donald Trump was attempting to provoke Kim Jong Un.

“We have never sought war with North Korea, and still today we do not seek it,” Haley said on Wednesday. “If war does come, it will be because of continued acts of aggression like we witnessed yesterday. And if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.”