, sanctified in a newly passed law authorizing the North to nuke its enemies whenever Kim feels like it.
South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, pursuing an increasingly hard line toward North Korea, was just as incensed. “Such reckless nuclear provocations,” he promised, “will be met with a resolute response from our military and our allies.” The White House came out with its own ritualistic condemnations, promising to live up to its “ironclad commitments” to its Korean and Japanese allies.How much such rhetorical flourishes really mean was far from clear.
Under the circumstances, the most visible evidence of American and South Korean resolve was what the South Korean command called “joint direct attack munition” bombing by four American F-16’s and four South Korean F-15K’s on “precision targets” on a tiny uninhabited outcropping named Jikdo. The islet, often used as a firing range, belongs to South Korea even though it’s closer to North Korea.
“Attacking North Korea’s launch facilities would be an act of war,” said Evans Revere, a former senior American diplomat in Seoul. “It's hard to imagine the United States taking such a step unless there was solid evidence indicating that the DPRK was about to carry out an attack on the United States, one of our bases, or one of our allies.”