When U.S.
President Donald Trump boasted early last week that he had sent an
"armada" as a warning to North Korea, the aircraft carrier strike
group he spoke of was
still far from the Korean peninsula, and headed in the
opposite direction.
It was even
farther away over the weekend, moving through the Sunda Strait and then into
the Indian Ocean, as North Korea displayed what appeared to be new missiles at
a parade and staged a failed missile test.
The U.S.
military's Pacific Command explained on Tuesday that the strike group first had
to complete a shorter-than-initially planned period of training with Australia.
But it was now "proceeding to the Western Pacific as ordered," it
said.
The
perceived communications mix-up has raised eyebrows among Korea experts, who
wonder whether it erodes the Trump administration's credibility at a time when
U.S. rhetoric about the North's advancing nuclear and missile capabilities are
raising concerns about a potential conflict.
"If you
threaten them and your threat is not credible, it's only going to undermine
whatever your policy toward them is. And that could be a logical conclusion
from what's just happened," said North Korea expert Joel Wit at the 38
North monitoring group, run by Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced
International Studies.
The U.S.
military initially said in a statement dated April 10 that Admiral Harry
Harris, the commander of Pacific Command, directed the Carl Vinson strike group
"to sail north and report on station in the Western Pacific."
Reuters and
other news outlets reported on April 11 that the movement would take more than
a week. The Navy, for security reasons, says it does not report future
operational locations of its ships.
Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis initially appeared to play down the deployment on April
11, saying the Vinson was "just on her way up there because that's where
we thought it was most prudent to have her at this time."
"There's
not a specific demand signal or specific reason why we're sending her up
there," he said.
But even
Mattis initially misspoke about the strike group's itinerary, telling a news
conference that the Vinson had pulled out of an exercise with Australia.
The Pentagon
has since corrected the record, saying the ship's planned port visit to
Fremantle, Australia, was canceled - not the exercise with Australia's navy.
On April 15,
the U.S. Navy even published a photo showing the Vinson transiting the Sunda
Strait. here
From April
16-18, the website www.gonavy.jp/CVLocation.html reported
that the Vinson was in the Indian Ocean.
A U.S.
military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Vinson carried
out the exercises after passing through the Sunda Strait and wrapped them up
this week.
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