The United States and South Korea put on an aerial show of force to North Korea on Tuesday. The two allies flew 20 fighter jets over the water to the west of the Korean Peninsula in response to Pyongyang’s most recent missile tests and fears that North Korea will conduct nuclear tests. South Korean F-35A, F-15K, FK-16 and United States F-16s flew over the yellow sea on Tuesday morning.
The countries demonstrated their ability to retaliate and strike quickly against North Korean provocations. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Monday that North Korea may have opened an access to its underground nuclear testing site. The US military has also seen personnel and vehicle activity at the Punggye-ri site from satellite images. Punggye-ri was the site of all six of North Korea’s nuclear tests and was partially dismantled in 2018 in an agreement between South and North Korea and the US. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has been banned by the United Nations, their last nuclear weapons test was in 2017.
