US sends a show of strength to South Korea – as it keeps Pyongyang on pause

The high-profile carrier deployment came just days after Pyongyang had test-launched cruise missiles, flexing its military muscles in a thinly veiled warning.

The carrier strike group’s arrival marked the first such visit by a US battle group since June last year. A statement from the South Korean navy framed the deployment as a reaffirmation of the alliance’s strength, particularly in the face of North Korea’s persistent threats.

She derided the carrier deployment, and that of US B-1B strategic bombers over the peninsula during joint drills with Japan and South Korea earlier this year, as “confrontation hysteria” and denounced a statement issued at a security conference in Munich last month calling for North Korea’s denuclearisation.