North Korea Dialing Back Rhetoric: U.S. Pacific Commander

In a Pentagon briefing on 13 May 2013, U.S. Army Pacific Commander Lt. Gen. Frank Wiercinski said that he believes North Korea is dialing back its rhetoric.

“I’ve seen this for 34 years –cyclical provocation with the grandfather, the father and now the son. It’s – it’s nothing that I wouldn’t– have not expected. However, I would think that this time it was a tenuous situation. For the first time, we deployed theater ballistic missile defense to Guam in protection of the homeland.

 They have a demonstrated capability to place a missile into space. We’ve seen that. They have a purported testing of nuclear weapons systems. And we take that very seriously. But it appears the rhetoric has died down in recent days and we’re hoping that that cycle of provocation has come to its end-point for this — this cycle.”

 As for relations with the Chinese military, Gen. Wiercinski echoed much the same message presented by U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsy in his meetings with Chinese military officials in Beijing in April of this year.

  ” I believe that the Army is — is extremely well-suited to conduct continuous engagement with the Chinese because our army-to-army forces are literally at this point not a threat to each other.

   Our engagements with disaster management exercises, military medicine, engineering projects, these are all peacekeeping operations. These are all excellent opportunities for us to begin mil-to-mil discussions.And I can only hope that those will continue in the future. I believe that with the four-star headquarters coming to U.S. Army- Pacific, that will only increase the opportunity for increased visits. And I see us with a way ahead, as we move forward.” (DP) 

Transcript of Pentagon briefing: http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5237

Ministry of National Defense PRC U.S.-China Talks April 2013: http://eng.mod.gov.cn/TopNews/2013-04/23/content_4444002.htm