The US has announced its intention of permanently
deploying a company of Grey Eagle drones capable of firing Hellfire
Missiles, to South Korea, along the border with North Korea.
Officials are saying they’ll provide “surveillance”
capabilities.
Yet
the fact that they chose to send a missile-capable drone suggests
surveillance isn’t the primary goal of this deployment. The Trump
Administration has already shown an interest in escalating the use of
drones to attack targets in places that are not directly part of
current US military operations.
While
the US throwing more military forces at the Korean Peninsula is
nothing new, deploying forces that are seen as being usable in
something short of a full-scale military operation seems particularly
risky, as it risks the chance that the overflights could blunder the
US into a precipitous escalation with North Korea.
This
is doubly true because drones being used for their stated purpose,
surveillance, could be misinterpreted by North Korean Air Defense as
an imminent US attack with Hellfire Missiles, and could produce a
retaliatory response from North Korea’s substantial missile
program.
It’s
not too hard to imagine a number of ways in which this deployment
could destabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and with the
Trump Administration openly eschewing any negotiations with North
Korea as proposed by China recently, it only adds to the sense the US
is seeking a “military solution.”
Source
and links:
Comments
Post a Comment