U.S. flies bombers over Korea, plans missile defense test

Seoul, South Korea, from above
(Image credit: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

The United States Air Force flew bombers over the Korean Peninsula Thursday and Friday in a show of force responding to North Korea's recent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) theoretically capable of striking Alaska. B-1 Lancer bombers and U.S. F-16 fighters based in Guam were joined by planes from the South Korean and Japanese militaries to communicate the U.S. and her allies "are trained, equipped and ready to unleash the full lethal capability of our allied air forces."

The Pentagon is also planning to test its THAAD missile defense system in Alaska "in early July," officials told Reuters. THAAD, which is short for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, is designed to intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.