Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
After praising Poland’s conservative ruling party during his visit to Warsaw on Thursday, President Trump quickly shifted his focus back to the escalating missile crisis in North Korea, saying that he is contemplating “some pretty severe things” to retaliate against Kim Jong Un after he tested an ICBM on America’s independence day, capable of reaching US territory.
“I have some pretty severe things we’re thinking about,” Trump said at a news conference in Warsaw. “Doesn’t mean we’re going to do them. I don’t draw red lines.”
“I think we will just take a look at what happens over the coming weeks and months with respect to North Korea,” Mr. Trump added. “It’s a shame they’re behaving this way and they’re behaving in a very dangerous manner, and something will have to be done about it.”
Trump’s comments, made during a news conference in Warsaw, come a day after UN Ambassador Nikki Haley warned that the US is prepared to use the full range of its capabilities to deter North Korea, including military force “if we must.”
Here’s Bloomberg:
Trump, who spoke alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda, offered no details about what he is considering and did not answer a question directly about whether he is contemplating the use of military force. Earlier in the news conference, he said he is calling on all nations to “publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for their very, very bad behavior.”
Trump once again declined to say that it was only Russia that was involved in hacking the 2016 presidential election ahead of his meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday. U.S. intelligence agencies have blamed the Russian government but Trump has stopped short of laying blame squarely with the Kremlin.”
North Korea’s missile test, which followed several other launches in recent months rattled the international community and increased the pressure on Trump to take action, to show that his tough rhetoric is more than just bluster. Trump has previously said that “the era of strategic patience with the North Korea regime has failed’’ and “is over.”
“Trump has said all options including military force are available against Pyongyang, though its neighbors warn a strike could be disastrous for North Asia. South Korea’s new government favors talks to bring Kim to heel, also putting it potentially at odds with Trump’s administration.North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear-tipped warhead capable of reaching the U.S. is likely to be a significant topic during the G-20. Trump is scheduled to have bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Putin. Each of those leaders have spoken out against North Korea’s provocations, and Trump has leaned on China in particular to rein in the rogue regime but acknowledged recently that it’s not working.”
However, both China and Russia, each a permanent member of the UN Security Council, have spoken out against a full-on invasion at this stage – saying they would block the authorization of military force using their veto power at the UN.
At the news conference, Trump also fielded questions about whether he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s verdict that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a bid to help him defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. With Trump set to meet President Vladimir Putin on Friday at the summit , the issue has fresh urgency at least for the likes of CNN.
Trump responded that others might have been culpable, in addition from Russia. “I think it was Russia and I think it could have been other people and other countries,” Mr. Trump said. “A lot of people interfered. I think it’s been happening for a long time.”
Trump also said the U.S. intelligence community has made mistakes in the past and its judgment is open to question. As he has done in the past when discussing Russian hacking, he mentioned the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Intelligence assessments claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction turned out to be inaccurate.
“I remember listening about Iraq,” Trump said. He added: “Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure.”
* * *
Trump also took a swipe at Barack Obama, referencing news reports that Obama was told about Russian hacking last August, Trump said the former president took no action because of the mistaken belief that Mrs. Clinton would win anyway. Trump was meeting with Mr. Duda and the heads of various Baltic and central European states. With the Poland visit, Trump hopes to deliver a message that the U.S. stands with allies living in Russia’s shadow, White House officials said.
Before departing in the afternoon, Trump will deliver a speech in Krasinski Square, scene of a Polish uprising against the Nazis in 1944. In the speech, Trump will repeat his message that nations need to safeguard their borders or risk terrorist attack.
“While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism,” Trump plans to say, according to a speech excerpt provided by the White House.
Yea Trump ……do something to N. Korea, you have been BSing on the subject for several months, supposedly you have three carrier battle groups in the area, and your anti ballistic missile test against a presumptive ICBM failed. And S. Korea halted the full deployment of THADD, that should tell you something about the changing political winds and China’s influence in the area.
NK is a bluff and it’s gettin boring hearing about them 24//7
Sick and tired of hearing the US talk of attacking just about everyone on the whole planet. They were offered a way out. All the US had to do was stop the military exercises close to NK borders. They are so caught up in their exceptionalism that they do not feel the need for diplomacy.and it is beneath them give anything away. Everyone must bow to US wishes no if’s and’s or but’s. They are the biggest threat to world peace with out a doubt. They are my neighbors that I will never visit.
Everyone on the whole planet must bow to our system. Its the same shit system you have. We would not have if it were not for the liberal puke socialist infection that comes to the US from places like yours. You and your euro trash envy half wits that have infected the US with the idea that it is a world community that requires western value governance. If we were smart we would go back to who we were. Exceptional red necks who gave two shits less about what is happening elsewhere as it does not effect us. Way to late now. NeoCons and LibraCons both running around spouting UN authority with Canadian styled socialist democracy. If we invade anything it should be up north but then again we already own that shit too. So yes the DPRK must be destroyed so it can have a false democracy with a fake two party system and join the corporations of the world.
“Retaliation” for what? That a country defends itself?
Communist dictatorships are not countries, they are shitholes.
your mouth is a…
Shut the fuck up, Fat Kim.
Whatta clown.
With the Chinese president in Moscow for talks with Russian president Putin, The theme projected and announced was COOPERATION like never before considering both countries histories.
Then Boom. DPRK 4th of July defiance setting things in motion.
at UNXC the expected bellicose approach of Nicky Haley, they expected bellicose blather of “with us or against us”, adding that against us will have consequence.
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when I say blather, I mean exactly that, she goes on to say something to some people and threaten them without actually realizing that the decision was already made. If you look at the Chinese and Russian delegations at the UNSC, they spoke in unison about their proposal.
I’m just gonna get to the point. The powers in the region want an end to US provocations and US high-tech missile systems in the region that threaten not only North Korea, but the regional powers themselves.
Negotiate or let the contest of wills begin.
==================================
The USA will break no-one but itself.
That’s what 70 years of threatening a nation does to you. It makes you do your best to have nukes. I am surprised it took North Korea this long. It shouldn’t have been sitting on its hands throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s. The technology was known back then and the USSR and China were closer allies, it wouldn’t have taken much to bribe a scientist or two from those countries to help out. Anyway, it’s done. Now the US has to live with the uncertainty North Korea has had to: how many nukes does North Korea have, where are they pointed at, what is the size, where are they hidden, how can the US defend itself against them, what are the chances of surviving a hit from them, how would the war scenario play out, …
The world has become a very dangerous place now. Someone, a third party, lets off a stray one at one or other of these nations, and poof, it could be a nuke war.
The USA handled this badly. The right thing to have done was to have played nice with North Korea, just like how it does with Vietnam and China, and let relations thaw a bit. In this way, North Korea is tricked into thinking it doesn’t have to do an arms build up. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar as they say.
I don’t think North Korea had any choice. And if a war happens this time, it won’t be like the first one. The Norks were caught out in the first Korean War. They didn’t expect they would have to fight the USA. The USA was giving very pointed messages that it didn’t want to get involved in any war. So the North Koreans crossed the border in response to the many provocations South Korea made (South Korea was probably told to provoke North Korea by crossing the border and attacking North Korean villages). And it was an easy ride for a while. The South had no intention of defending itself on their own, so they quickly retreated, and fled all the way to Busan, down south.
But in that war, 4 million North Koreans were killed or one-quarter of their population. They learned the lesson the hard way. In any conflict these days, you are going to have expect the US to be involved and plan for it. That’s what the Germans found out in World War I. They didn’t learn from that experience unfortunately and they invaded Russia in WWII, not figuring in their chances if the US entered the war. Japan hadn’t done Pearl Harbor by then.
But the US DID enter the war. By the same token, North Korea should have learned from what happened in WWII to Germany, and should have factored in having to fight the USA in any war it got involved in as a cost. But it didn’t.
But I don’t think North Korea is going to make the same mistake again. It knows it has to fight the USA in any war on the peninsula of course and it has made preparations for that. It knows it’s not going to be easy at all facing the world’s top military.
I think North Korea missed an opportunity in the Syrian war. I think the North Koreans should have offered their manpower in this war. Even offered to fight the war for them. Why? Because it gives the Norks actual real-life experience. The US has had battle field experience for many years after the Korean War – it was in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, etc. So this is good training for the military. This on the ground experience is invaluable. They can tweak things as they go along, improve, learn, and put things into practice.
So while the Yanks hadn’t entered the Syrian War officially – no boots on the ground – the North Koreans should have taken advantage of this opportunity to test their battle field skills, put their training to the test, and learn new things as they fought the insurgents.
Maybe if they had just embedded themselves into the Syrian army, it would have been good. They would have learned how things worked on the other side: how ISIS militants communicated with each other, and so on. Maybe even as observers they could have learned a lot.
Of course, they would have to be careful not to let military secrets and strategies leak to the enemy.
By the same token, if North Koreans were on the ground as observers now, alongside the Syrian army, they can learn a lot about American military operations. This would give them a good opportunity to spy on the Americans and even test things out.
They could give all kinds of equipment to the Syrians such as jamming equipment and spying equipment and communications equipment and see how they function in the real world. And improve things after analyzing the results.
This is something that the North Koreans need to think about – their lack of real-life war experience, and how to overcome that.
bro, try write 1 comment instaed of several
If you’re talking about the number of comments, I have to do that because the South Front system detects a long comment (about 3 paragraphs) as spam. If you ask why I have so much to say, I can’t help that, that’s my style.
“I think North Korea missed an opportunity in the Syrian war” I do not think they needed it. Traditionally, Asian countries have proved very difficult for the US military (ie. Vietnam, North Korea (NK) itself) In Afghanistan, nothing solved so far, the US is still there with no end in sight. Nobody knows how a war wit NK would look like this time around. It was difficult the first time now it can be worst since there is a risk that China might get involved (on the NK side) and in that case bye bye to all of us. Best for the US (and all of us) to keep away from NK!
To put NK-boots on the ground in Syria is a bad idea.
If the proportion of english or arab speaking personnel in the russian Military is not very high , they solve it because of their phenomenal logistics and internal organisation and the russian help is mostly over the airforce and with some spesnatz on the ground.
(two foreign languages above english is a requirement for spesnatz)
NK-army is not as specialised and skillful as the russian , so they would be used in ground operations on normal level.Than the language barrier is a big trouble because you have to coordinate with the arab-speaking allies every move. How many North-Koreans from below the high-commandstaff-level you think speak russian , english or arabic?
North Koreans apparently have some Arabic-speaking military personnel. They can act as interpreters. North Korea has been working with Arab nations for decades, since the 1960s. Since these relationships were important to them (Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Hezbollah), I would imagine North Korea would have focused on Arabic in the languages training department of its military. They would also have Persian speaking military people too. North Korea has been working with Iran closely since the late 1980s. They worked with Iran during the Shah’s time too.
https://jucheireland.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/the-importance-of-international-solidarity-dprks-support-for-hezbollah/
“Arab-speaking KPA advisors were integral to the operational planning of the surprise attack and artillery campaign execution during the battle for Qusair, and allied Hezbollah fighters, changing the dynamics of the war in Syria.”
https://jucheireland.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/the-importance-of-international-solidarity-dprks-support-for-hezbollah/
At that link above from jucheireland, other examples of North Korea-Middle Eastern nations cooperation given. Some people say North Korea runs a training center for Hezbollah and Iranian military officers. They say Nasrallah and Badreddine trained there. I don’t know if that’s true. This is what Westerners say.
smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/654-wege.pdf
They are specialized and skillful. Apparently, according to western sources, North Korea was instrumental in Hezbollah’s victory against Israel. Without North Korea’s training Hezbollah in SIGINT and tunnel technology, it’s unlikely Hezbollah could have won that war.
Even the Israelis say North Korean advisors had a significant influence in the outcome of that battle. This is why this kind of experience will be helpful to the North Koreans. They can test out how well their gear works against Americans. The Israelis would have used the best stuff that they got from the Americans in that war.
Link: https://archive.is/Rh6Cc
Thank you , the report about NK and Hizbollah was very enlightening for me.
You’re welcome. :)
Another link about North Korea’s participation in Syria:
http://www.38north.org/2013/11/amansourov112513/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/29/us-sanctions-chinese-bank-links-north-korea/
Not a whole lot of people know about North Korea since information regarding North Korea is mostly coming from the MSM and secondary information from the so called experts. How many people know that North Korea is endowed with enormous natural resources? That is a question that could naturally arise given North Korean nuke development which needs Uranium, Lithium, etc for example and where North Korea gets those minerals for its nuke development. The answer to all is simple. North Korea has enormous natural resources such as Uranium, Magnesium, Iron, Lithium, Rare earth minerals, etc. North Korea is also an oil producing country even though the annual oil production is classified. In fact North Korea has two thirds of world’s rare earth minerals.
see http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/north-korea-may-have-two-thirds-of-worlds-rare-earths/
North Korea was once a base for Japan’s nuke development during world war 2 because of North Korean natural resources and so North Korea has a quite history of nuke development dating back to world war 2. With its enormous high quality Uranium reserves, North Korea can produce nukes at will and it is anyone’s guess how many nukes North Korea already possesses. Long story short, North Korea is in good position to engage a war against the US.
The US is a sketchy country you here all the nuts come out of the woodwork there , they just see NK as a resource port and they still want to access and control it. The South goes through moments when it can’t produce enough food, and the NK helps out same with oil and gas . The thing that scares the US is the re-unification talk there , means they lose access to the bases in South Korea . Them losing the bases would be a good thing means the civilian population is safe from the assaults and sexual molestation and exploitation . Japanese people want the bases removed and are finding resistance from the US. This all coincides nicely with NK which has always been this way without any outward threat to others than crap talk coming from all known belligerents in the area .
The DPRK mastered light isotope fusion. Study nuclear detonation of Castle Bravo in Wikipedia . it used ordinary unrefined lithium 6 and lithum 7 as fusion fuel. Once the proper light isotope for fusion was founf the DPRK only needed the photon triggers to start the fusion of light isotopes . Once the fusion fuel is burning then DPRK included U238 for fast fission as well. Likely DPRK developed other light isotopes that fuse at lower temperatures. DPRK has as many light fusion weapons as it wants. The US can not attack or else it may transfer the fusion tech to others.. Every effort is made to prevent Sixth nuke test expected to be 250 kilotons most of which comes from light isotopes plus fast fission U238. So the sixth test will prove to every little punk that fast fusion weapons by a poor country is possible . So without a large reactor or large isotope separation facilities DPRK Sixth demonstration will prove it mastered fusion cheaply and effectively.. In a decade there could be two dozen more countries with light fusion weapons cheap easy no large reactor needed. Now you get it. ,
I finally figured out why Russia will not sell their S-400 system to any country in danger of coming under attack… Because the Russian S-400 missile system does not actually work! Just like all the S-300 systems sold to Syria and Greece and Iran do not work either against Israeli or UK or USSA jets.
Lame, this is why Russia sells no AA defense to best-Korea, cause nothing they have even works against Israeli or USSA or UK jets.
Are u serious?
Are u just assuming or u have proof?
I have never seen one time where Russia has bluffed its capabilities plus im 100% certain the tests of these systems are published!
I think u just got emotional here for a minute and it took over ur brain. Calm down sunshine!
Orange Clown
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/822988790595624961/BtzHc0id.jpg
The arms race is far from over. North Korea has got a lot of catching up to do. EMP strikes are the new frontier in the arms war. The US has this new aircraft that can do EMP strikes high up in the atmosphere where it’s hard to detect anything.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/ireport/sm/prod/2010/09/04/WE00473494/1407302/tr3bbelgium89300jpg-1407302_lg.jpg
Read about it here:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-488531
This is called TR3B.
I think nuke ICBMs is old-style warfare. New-style warfare is electronic jamming, cyber warfare and EMP. EMP can cause electronic jamming too. Whoever develops these weapons first will win the arms race.
North Korea cannot afford to be complacent.