B-1B

The US will deploy B-1B Lancer bombers over Korean Peninsula for joint aerial drills with U.S. and South Korean fighters, Yonhap News reports, citing military authorities.

The B-1B squadron will fly from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam today, and will be deployed to participate in the United States Air Force's "Vigilant Ace"  which as we reported over the weekend is the “largest-ever” joint US aerial drill to be held together with South Korea. The squadron of tactical bombers will practice bombing runs under the cover of South Korean warplanes.

The US and South Korea launched their largest aerial drills yet on Monday, less than a week after North Korea tested its new Hwasong-15 missile which military observers said has the capacity to strike Washington DC, or nearly any other location in the continental US. The launched shattered nearly two months of calm as many suspected the North’s benefactors in China were making good on their promises to rein in the restive state’s belligerent behavior.

Today, the South Korean and U.S. navies kicked off massive combined drills off the coast of the Korean peninsula amid heightened tensions, a training exercise which North Korea has warned may prompt another ballistic missile launch potentially to coincide with the launch of the Chinese 19th Party Congress on October 18. The two allies plan to continue the Maritime Counter Special Operations Exercise (MCSOFEX) through Friday in the East Sea and the Yellow Sea.

Echoing a report from earlier this week, when on Wednesday the Seoul-based Asia Business Daily reported that North Korea is preparing to fire multiple short-range rockets around the opening of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress on Oct. 18 - arguably the year's most important geopolitical event - on Saturday the South Korean press claimed that "North Korea is believed to be preparing to launch a ballistic missile ahead of an upcoming joint naval drill by the US and South Korea", according to a government source.

As tensions between North Korea and the U.S. continue to escalate with every Trump tweet and subsequent response by Kim Jong-Un, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said that the U.S. has prepared "four or five different scenarios" for how the crisis with North Korea will be resolved, adding ominously that “some are uglier than others."