region this is springtime and there are exercises that occur. fall eagle will continue through the month of april. there s a question as we speak in our trade, of audiences, i think there s significant messaging going on to an internal audience for a very young leader. that is trying perhaps to establish himself. but at times seems to come off as a bit of a pet lant child perhaps. the u.s. will take these threats seriously. it s demonstrated in the robust nature of the exercises and the ongoing commitment that is expressed. and of course, u.s. forces, u.s. forces korea are there, ambassador kim is on the ground. the channels of communication are very strong between i imagine this white house and the white house in korea. and of course japan and china as well. now the other thing is that jay carney just said at the white house we re not seeing a real mobilization. as you say, he is appealing, he s speaking to a domestic audience, kim jeong on jong is.
developed, tom donnelly, when he spoke at the asian society, the national security adviser and president obama in his statement in february about the nuclear test made it very clear what our position is. as a country and as a government. and that is, commitment to the allies and commitment to insure that north korea has a path out of this corner that its continually patientsing itself into, with this bellicose rhetoric to invoke one of my long-time favorite bands, one ought to say, don t believe the hype, but do react to the threats in a concerted wise way. the rhetoric increasingly puts north korea in a more isolated position. and this is the real tragedy. is that the people that pay for this are the north korean people. by doubling down on both the threats and frankly these weapons programs, they have a country that is at the bottom of human developments indices. and starving the country to develop these weapons.
while these internal shuffles are going on. that s the theory here in seoul. but the danger is, how far will this go? could there be a mistake? with all of this rhetoric, with the north saying that it is now in a state of war with weapons being put on a higher state of readiness, with the communications cut, the red phones that are designed specifically to avert a crisis, being unplugged by north korea. there is is a serious concern that this could, while it may be just an attempt to cover up a power struggle, or a cleaning house, if you will, that it could, it could, it could get out of control. and richard, the new president of south korea is first of all, just inaugurated, just held her first cabinet meetings within the last two weeks. the first woman leader, she s under a lot of political pressure. so she will have to respond to any overt provocation once it
and something which he could have actually gotten from iran. so like previous speakers, i don t want to speak to things that may be classified. and obviously open sources, there have been concerns about those kind of things. about uranium enrichment that s taking place there. there has been no to my knowledge. aerial evidence as was mentioned by other speakers. but look, there s a lot of concerns about having a leader like this. that appears to be very unstable with nuclear weapons and the proliferation that comes from this. and how they might be working with iran and others to cause even more proliferation. so again, andrea, let s face it. this has not been a u.s. foreign policy success. for years, this has been something that our country has focused on. probably not in the way that we should. we now have a country that has those weapons. whether they can deliver it or
gets past words. president park has been talking very tough. this is her first crisis. and other governments were criticized for being too soft on the north. after the north sunk a ship, warship that belonged to the south, after it attacked a civilian island. there were criticisms that this government, that governments in seoul were too soft. she said today that any kind of provocation will be met with a tough military response. and gave her general more leeway to respond directly from actions to, from the north. so again, more, more gas on the ground. more potential for an explosion. you have a new leader in the south, who is talking tough, who is coming from the background of criticism that the previous governments hadn t been doing enough. and you have a really unknown quantity in the north, who is