Vinson carrier group expected off Korea in late April

The U.S. media went into overdrive and Fox reported on April 14 that the armada was “steaming” toward North Korea.

-South Korea war games. “We said that it was heading there, and it was heading there, it is heading there”.

It started on April 9, when a Navy news release announced that Adm. Harry Harris had directed the Vinson, as well as three other warships, to leave Singapore the day before.

But pictures posted by the U.S. Navy suggest that’s not quite the case – or at least not yet.

The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group is on a scheduled western Pacific deployment as part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet-led initiative to extend the command and control functions of U.S. 3rd Fleet..

It has scrapped a planned port visit in Australia as a result of sailing north.

Joel Wit, a co-founder of the 38 North programme of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said the matter was “very perplexing” and fed into North Korea’s narrative that America is all bluster and doesn’t follow through on threats.

On Sunday, North Korea attempted to test a ballistic missile, but it exploded seconds after launch.

White House officials have repeatedly said “all options are on the table” to respond to Pyongyang’s latest missile launch – a medium-range missile that blew up nearly immediately – but have stopped short of flatly saying that military action was being planned. “We will continue to be the centrepiece of visible maritime deterrence, providing our national command authority with flexible deterrent options, all domain access, and a visible forward presence”. It’s prudent. But it does a lot of things.

“We are doing exactly what we said we were going to do”.

Susan Thornton, the State Department’s acting secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said that the Trump administration was seeking “a signal [from North Korea] that they realize the current status quo is not sustainable”. “The Vinson sails up and down the Pacific routinely, and so I would not read anything into the Carl Vinson’s current locations”.

Last week President Trump said an “armada” was being sent.

Sergey Lavrov is responding to Vice President Mike Pence’s statement Monday in South Korea that the “era of strategic patience is over” with regard to North Korea’s efforts to build nuclear weapons.

But he added: “As all of you know, readiness is the key. You never know”, Trump replied.

On April 15, the U.S. Navy even published a photo showing the Vinson transiting the Sunda Strait.

That plan was thrown into doubt when photos taken last weekend showed it operating almost 3,500 miles away, off Indonesia.

On Tuesday night, a senior administration official said a miscommunication between the Pentagon and the White House was to blame for the mixed reports.