As the USS Carl Vinson glided into the South Korean port of Busan on Sunday, the aircraft carrier symbolised Washington’s continued commitment to its alliance with Seoul – even as North Korea looks to be fading into the backdrop of US foreign policy priorities.
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The high-profile carrier deployment came just days after Pyongyang had test-launched cruise missiles, flexing its military muscles in a thinly veiled warning.
But for Washington, observers say the Korean peninsula appears to be playing second fiddle to more pressing global crises like the war in Ukraine.
The carrier strike group’s arrival marked the first such visit by a US battle group since June last year. A statement from the South Korean navy framed the deployment as a reaffirmation of the alliance’s strength, particularly in the face of North Korea’s persistent threats.
Predictably, Pyongyang lashed out. On Tuesday, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, issued a scathing rebuke. In a statement carried by state media, she accused Washington of demonstrating “its most hostile and confrontational will”.
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She derided the carrier deployment, and that of US B-1B strategic bombers over the peninsula during joint drills with Japan and South Korea earlier this year, as “confrontation hysteria” and denounced a statement issued at a security conference in Munich last month calling for North Korea’s denuclearisation.