US Guided-Missile Submarine Arrives in South Korea

The USS Michigan’s arrival in South Korea, the first of its kind in six years, is part of a recent bilateral agreement on enhancing “regular visibility” of US strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s advancing nuclear program, according to South Korean officials.

With the deployment of the USS Michigan, the US and South Korean navies are to conduct drills on boosting their special operation capabilities and joint ability to cope with growing North Korean nuclear threats, the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement.

It said the US submarine arrived at the southeastern port city of Busan but didn’t say how long it would stay in South Korean waters, AP reported.

The USS Michigan is one of the biggest submarines in the world. The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine can be armed with 150 Tomahawk missiles with a range of about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) and is capable of launching special forces missions, according to the South Korean statement.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries have been expanding their exercises in reaction to North Korea’s provocative run of missile tests since last year. North Korea has argued it was forced to ramp up testing activities to deal with its rivals’ expanded military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.

On Thursday, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, shortly after it vowed responses to the just-ended South Korea-US firing drills near the Koreas’ heavily armed border.

They were the North’s first weapons launches since it tried to put its first spy satellite into orbit in late May. The launch failed as the rocket carrying the spy satellite crashed into the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast.