Two members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation expressed faith in the head of U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. military Tuesday and called for diplomacy as North Korea threatened a missile strike on Guam.

A former deputy commander of the Oahu- based Pacific Command, meanwhile, said, “We shouldn’t be panicked, but we should be more alarmed than normal.”

The “most important point to note is, this (North Korean threat) is different,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Fig” Leaf. “This is not a continuation of the same old North Korean stuff that’s been going on for, really, 30 years of provocations.”

The Guam rhetoric is “an explicit threat in crisis,” Leaf said — with that crisis extending from North Korea’s second successful intercontinental ballistic missile test launch on July 28 through Tuesday’s stunning day of escalation that began with the revelation that North Korea apparently has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit aboard its ballistic missiles.

President Donald Trump then warned that North Korea could “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Leaf, who was deputy commander of Pacific Command from 2005 to 2008 and director of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies from 2012 until January, said he was confident that Adm. Harry Harris, head of Pacific Command, and his subcommanders, along with Gen. Vincent Brooks, head of U.S. Forces Korea, “are doing everything prudent and possible and they are being pretty imaginative about it” in evaluating North Korea’s threat.

“You don’t just spur-of-the-moment launch a missile that might strike Guam, or Hawaii, or the mainland,” Leaf, a Honolulu-based security consultant with Phase Minus 1, said in a phone interview. “So I’m sure that they’ve got an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance plan that is pulling out all the stops looking for (North Korean) activity. I don’t know that, but that makes sense.”

Leaf also said Harris can exercise changes in alert status and force availability in the region that might not be made public.

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono said the first priority “must be to keep Hawaii and our country safe, and I have confidence in Adm. Harris and our commanders in the region.”

“De-escalating tensions with North Korea will require sustained engagement and steady American leadership. At the same time, we must work toward a comprehensive and sustainable diplomatic solution in concert with our allies and other regional partners. Bluster and saber-rattling will only exacerbate an already difficult situation,” Hirono said in an email.

Fellow U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said he does not think that North Korea has the ability to hit any part of the United States with a nuclear ICBM. Schatz, who also responded via email, did not elaborate, but some missile experts suggest the North hasn’t perfected all the components of an ICBM, including the ability of a warhead to survive the extreme conditions of re-entry into the atmosphere.

“But their technological improvements are alarming and require a multipronged response,” Schatz said. “We must engage in vigorous diplomacy and beef up our missile defenses. The president’s statement was unwise in both tone and substance. There is no diplomatic or military advantage to using such overheated language.”

Schatz added: “We are fortunate to be led in the Pacific by a determined and levelheaded commander, and a distinguished and skilled U.S. Forces Korea general. Their on-the-ground knowledge and experience is critical as we forge ahead towards peace.”

The Korean Central News Agency, the state news agency of North Korea, on Tuesday called new United Nations sanctions on the country “heinous,” and said the “U.S. war-thirsty forces are engrossed in war hysteria without discretion.”

The Pentagon is planning a “beheading operation” with B-52 bombers, Navy SEALs, aircraft carriers and submarines preparing for a pre-emptive strike, it said.

“Timed to coincide with this, the 82nd Airborne Division, the U.S. imperialist forces’ only air-dropping one, went into a large-scale airdrop and mobile drill, anticipating its involvement in the Korean front, and the 25th light infantry division and the 10th Mountain Division are running high fever in their drills for getting familiar with the terrain of the Korean Peninsula,” KCNA said.

The 101st Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is also airborne, contrary to the statement. The 25th Division is based at Oahu’s Schofield Barracks.

Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, said: “We have training going on every day that would apply to any threat in the region, which certainly could include North Korea if it were required by our chain of command. Some of those scheduled exercises have taken place in (South Korea) and will continue to do so.”