we know with the best intelligence that we can declassify that would help tillerson as he moves into his meeting and second, talking about our attack. to remind the viewers. the russian news has been reporting that half of the tomahawk missiles missed their target and this was a failure and they are showing footage of planes taking off and showing warehouses where the alleged chemical weapons were stored that are empty. the more details that would help in his meeting with the russians. and if i can go back to hans for a moment, he is not with us anymore. jack is sitting next to me. hans was mentions that north korea may come up too. just to understand the military side of this, there is the uss carl vincent that has been move and they are getting closer and closer to the peninsula.
surprise. it is still a question mark and the president appeared to be tying the issue of trade and security on the korean peninsula, all of it as the navy is now sending the strike force to japan close to the peninsula that he intended to send a message and to beijing as well. let me go back to the meetings that will be happening with secretary of state rex tillerson. bill did outline some of this and i wanted to break down the issues that are complex in the relationship between russia and the u.s. right now. obviously syria. secretary tillerson made it clear this administration does not support assad s regime. especially after what happened last week. hacking. they called on russia to end the foreign relations and that undermines their relationship with the united states.
about red lines. i generally shy away from it myself. i recommend assad be rather cautious about violating international law with chemical weapons, i suppose that could be considered a red line. it will not spiral out of town. secretary of state tillerson is in moscow and we maintained communications with the russian military and with the diplomatic channels. it will not spiral out of control. what gives you that assurance, the russians have been clear on your rrhetoric. the russians are saying another response like the one you launched on april 6th would be a red line for them. how are you so confident this isn t going to spiral out of control? i m confident the russians will act in their own best interest and there s nothing in their best interest to say they want this situation to go out of control. yes, ma am. as you consider the u.s. force posture after isis is
with rex tillerson there in the region, what pressure can the u.s. put on the russian government. how much leverage do they have right now. i have to say this is a problem that is all very well to say russia is an island. russia is isolated. we are talking about the syrian war in which the key and most effective players are russia s assad forces, iran, and the lebanese militia that followed. i do understand what shaup spear is saying in those terms, but the fact is that this is the coalition. that is winning the war in syria and russia will be disinclined to drop assad who is winning that war. he took aleppo and had control of all the major cities.
before the cameras at this moment of international unrest in a lot of places. is the timing coincidence? i don t believe in coincidence in this environment. what do you think we will hear from him? it s difficult to say initially. the requesty is to what extent will he weigh in and russia and north korea on the other hand. he is probably going to walk a fine line because he wants to give tillerson as much room as possible. with respect to syria in particular, this is a very, very difficult thing for the defens department. the defense department only uses the military instrument of power.