With a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group steaming toward waters off the Korean Peninsula and important anniversaries looming for nuclear-armed North Korea, the stage has been set for a showdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and the North's leader, Kim Jong Un.
Saturday's order to divert the USS Carl Vinson-led strike group to the Western Pacific from a planned port call in Australia is sure to ratchet up tensions in the region and comes just days after U.S. cruise missiles struck Syria. Those strikes were widely interpreted as containing an implicit message to Pyongyang that the Trump administration will not rule out unilateral military attacks on the Kim regime.
The strike group was to arrive the same week Pyongyang marks the April 15 anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's birth, an event where it is likely to flaunt its military might, potentially with its sixth nuclear test or a military parade showcasing an intercontinental ballistic missile.