Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Monday that the U.S. military has not attempted to shoot down ballistic missiles test-launched by North Korea because they have not been on a trajectory to hit U.S. or allies’ territory.
The comments come after the underground test of a nuclear bomb earlier this month and days after North Korea launched its second missile in less than a month that flew over northern Japan.
The intermediate-range missile was launched Friday near the isolated nation’s capital, Pyongyang, soaring for about 2,300 miles before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The test demonstrated that the U.S. territory of Guam is now in attack range.
Mattis said these launches are testing the U.S. military to see how much North Korea can get away with before triggering a response.
“They are intentionally doing provocations that seem to press against the envelope to see how far they can push without going over some kind of line in their minds that would make them vulnerable,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
“The bottom line is: The missiles, were they to be a threat – whether it be to U.S. territory, Guam, [or] obviously Japan’s territory -- that would elicit a different response from us," he said. READ MORE
