Isle-based warships linking up with trio of carriers

Three U.S. aircraft carriers and about a dozen escort ships — including three destroyers from Pearl Harbor with over 1,000 Hawaii-­based sailors — are part of a rarely seen armada in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean that soon could be in position to threaten North Korea with massive firepower.

A joint exercise involving the USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz strike groups is planned for November around the same time President Donald Trump visits Asia, Friday to Nov. 14, according to The Associated Press. Trump is stopping in Hawaii on Friday. A three-carrier linkup hasn’t happened since 2007.

Tensions are now very high with neither Trump nor North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — both of whom are seen as extremely image-conscious — backing down in a showdown over the North’s nuclear weapons development and pursuit of a ballistic missile that can reliably threaten the United States.

The “real question” is whether the U.S. administration is “committed to North Korea not getting (that) nuclear missile capability,” said Denny Roy, an Asia expert at the East-West Center in Honolulu. “Several (high-ranking) administration officials, including Trump himself, have said that that is a red line.”

Telemetry and the ability of a North Korean warhead to survive through space and re-entry are still not refined.

“So if North Korea is, as we think, pretty close to getting that capability, (and) sanctions are not stopping them, then that raises the question, is the United States going to make good on that apparent threat — when the only option left probably will be a military attack (on the North)?” Roy said in a telephone interview.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Friday at the South Korean Demilitarized Zone that “as the U.S. secretary of state, (Rex) Tillerson has made clear our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

That line was echoed Oct. 19 by National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster at a national security forum. McMaster said to “accept and deter” North Korea’s nuclear missile capability “is unacceptable.”

“And so this puts us in a situation where we are in a race to resolve this, short of military action,” he said. North Korea, meanwhile, refuses to negotiate.

“The only answer we can give to the escalating threat of aggression and sanctions and pressure is the toughest counter action,” the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Friday.

Simultaneous development of economic construction and the “building of nuclear force to cope with the ever-increasing economic sanctions and nuclear threat and blackmail from the U.S. is the best option for the destiny and future of the DPRK,” the newspaper said.

DPRK is an acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

Roy, in a panel discussion with the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies and Honolulu Civil Beat on Oct. 12, said there is reason for “some worry” about conflict between United States and North Korea.

“There is a high risk of miscalculation in any conflict. But it’s extraordinarily high when the two sides don’t know each other very well,” he said. The United States and North Korea have very different political and strategic cultures, and both sides might think they can reasonably guess what the other side will do, but end up erring “very badly with terrible potential consequences.”

While the standoff with North Korea now is a very dangerous situation, there are ways out, Roy said.

“It’s possible that our government may not feel it has to carry out what appears to be a red-line threat” and attack North Korea at some point in the future, he said. Perhaps the North Koreans are not locked into not negotiating, Roy said.

“When we get closer to imminent (nuclear missile capability), it could be that some positive things might break,” he said.

In the meantime three Pearl Harbor destroyers, with more than 300 sailors on each ship, are in the Western Pacific. The warships carry more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Halsey and USS Preble entered the Western Pacific with the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group Monday, the Navy said. The USS Chafee pulled into Busan in South Korea with the USS Ronald Reagan strike group Oct. 21.