USS Michigan, American nuclear submarine armed with 154 tomahawk cruise missiles arrived in South Korea Tuesday morning. The visit comes after North Korea threatened to sink an American aircraft carrier.
North Korea reportedly marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of its military on Tuesday by conducting a large artillery drill.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that USS Michigan deployment is intended as a warning to North Korea against carrying out another nuclear test missile launch on the celebration of North Korea’s 85th anniversary of founding of its 1.3 million-strong military on Tuesday.
South Korea’s defense ministry could not immediately confirm the report.
On the “national meeting” of thousands of senior military and civilian officials, North Korea’s defence minister, Pak Yong-sik, says again that the country is ready to use pre-emptive strikes or any other measures it needs necessary to defend itself against the “US imperialists”.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that the USS Michigan submarine had arrived in the port of Busan and will join the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier that the U.S. redirected from training in the Pacific toward the Korean Peninsula.
The newspaper reported that the submarine is likely to act as a deterrent to the 1.3 million-strong Korean People’s Army, the founding of which North Korea celebrates on April 25 each year. Pyongyang dates the existence of its army from 1932, when Kim Il Sung founded it as a resistance movement against the Japanese occupation of Korea.
There have been fears that North Korea will use the anniversary as an excuse to carry out another missile test at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and the secretive Communist state, which launched a failed test in April.
The Michigan is one of the largest submarines in the United States’ arsenal and its tomahawk missiles have a range of 1,600km, meaning that from Busan the submarine could hit North Korean ports or military installations.
Michigan can also travel 46km/h and remain submerged for three to four months. At the moment it carries around 60 special operations troops as well as mini-subs to assist in underground infiltration missions.
Officially, the submarine will be involved in training procedures around the Korean Peninsula, and will carry out military exercises with the Carl Vinson.
The deployment comes a week after confusion about U.S. President Donald Trump’s “armada” of military vessels that he had promised to send to the Peninsula, with the USS Carl Vinson spotted in Indonesia when officials had said it has heading toward Korea.
North Korea reacted badly to news of the Carl Vinson deployment, promising a “super-mighty pre-emptive strike,” while China has tried to act as peacemaker, urging calm in the region.
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