It is even possible the United States could launch sudden strikes against North Korea as it did to Syria, he said.
"North Korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behaviour".
Some analysts believe that Trump's strike against Syria was meant as a message to Kim Jong-Un: "T$3 he US has a new sheriff in town who isn't hesitant about pulling his gun from the holster". The North has long claimed that the U.S.is preparing some kind of assault against it and justifies its nuclear weapons as defensive in nature.
The move will raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a United States missile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as putting Pyongyang on warning over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Originally scheduled to make port calls in Australia, it headed instead from Singapore to the Western Pacific Ocean.
The news followed a report by NBC that the National Security Council had included the return of nuclear weapons to South Korea in options presented to Donald Trump for dealing with the threat posed by North Korea.
S. Korea, Japan, US Hold Drill against N. Korea Submarines
The North is banned from any missile or nuclear tests by the United Nations , though it has repeatedly broken those sanctions. A USA statement said initial assessments indicate the type of missile was a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile.
Mr Tillerson told CBS' Face The Nation, in an interview broadcast yesterday, that when Mr Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at Mar-a-Lago last week, they "had extensive discussions around the unsafe situation in North Korea", The Guardian reported.
"Some worry that South Korea's voice regarding North Korea is dwindling, but rather I believe Seoul at this point must work harder than ever to understand what Washington really intends to accomplish with deploying this strike group". An unannounced submarine presence often transits with carrier strike groups as well.
Spokesperson of the US Pacific Command, Commander Dave Benham said that North Korea continues to be the number one threat in the region because of its "irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability". Asked on ABC if development of an intercontinental missile was a "red line" for Trump, Tillerson said: "If we judge that they have perfected that type of delivery system, then that becomes a very serious stage of their further development". If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
The review de-emphasizes direct military action, but a pre-emptive strike on the North is not off the table.
Now, in the latest sign that tensions are increasing, the USA has deployed a Navy strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier from Singapore.
USA aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson has been diverted to the Western Pacific instead of sailing from Singapore to Australia, the US navy said, amid escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
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