A recent pair of exercises involving the B-2 stealth bomber offers a pointed warning to Kim Jong-un and the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK for short. If conducting the exercise wasn't enough, U.S. Strategic Command directly referred to targeting the "DPRK leadership", in the clear, on a radio where it was monitored by military communications enthusiasts.

On the night of October 28, the B-2 bomber 88-0329, AKA Spirit of Missouri, took off from Whiteman Air Force Base and flew west over California and out into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. It would return to Whiteman 37 hours later. According to Air Force Magazine, Spirit of Missouri flew to Andersen Air Force Base in the Northern Mariana islands, swapped crews with the engines running, and flew all the way back to Missouri.

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But the flight to and from Missouri to Guam was not the entire mission. Certain elements of the flight are classified: Air Force Magazine says only that the mission was to "undisclosed area of the Pacific," with a crew swap on Guam. Round trip, the flight from Missouri to Guam is 14,556 miles. Assuming an average cruising speed of 530 miles an hour, that makes the trip 27 hours long. The B-2 was likely on the ground with engines running for no more than an hour.

What was the "undisclosed area of the Pacific"? It could be any number of places. It's useless to fly the B-2 near North Korea in a show of force, because Pyongyang's radars can't detect it. One possible location: Farallon de Medinilla , an uninhabited island in the Marianas chain used for bombing practice by B-2 and B-52 bombers. Here's a video of a B-52 unloading a stick of 45 500-pound dumb bombs on the island:

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Another exercise on the night of October 18 and19 was reported by a reader of The Aviationist blog. The reader apparently observed three B-2 bombers and a KC-135 Stratotanker while monitoring communications. At one point, the reader reported hearing "a command post possible DPRK leadership relocation site" unencrypted and in plain English.

Over a period of two nights, the bombers pretended to bomb an airfield and hangars at Jefferson City and Osage Beach, Missouri. The reader theorized that the terrain of the Ozark Mountains is similar to mountainous North Korea.

The B-2s were practicing for the so-called "Kill Chain" strategy, a South Korean plan to head off an imminent nuclear war by targeting the North Korean leadership. The theory is that an authoritarian country such as North Korea may only have a handful of people authorized to launch nuclear weapons, with the only known person who can definitely authorize a launch North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. If the United States or South Korea detects preparations for a nuclear strike, Kill Chain is designed to quickly launch scores of ballistic and cruise missiles against exactly what the exercise mentions: DPRK leadership relocation sites.

Ethan Miller Getty Images

B-2 manned bombers, with their ability to loiter over the country for hours on end and quickly act on DPRK leadership sightings, are an ideal platform for Kill Chain, particularly after South Korea has exhausted its supply of missiles.

One particularly interesting detail of the reader's story is that the bombers are practicing for "danger close" missions near friendlies up to 150 meters away from their bombs (presumably 500 pound GBU-38 Joint Directed Attack Munitions.) While this might be standard operating procedure for practicing air strikes, the idea of having friendlies on the ground in North Korea during wartime is a tough prospect. North Korea is a police state and one of the most heavily armed places in the world, making it difficult for agents and special forces to travel freely.

The exercise was pretty clearly designed to be observable by aviation enthusiasts, and mentioning "a command post possible DPRK leadership" in the clear guaranteed it would get passed on to the press… and eventually to Pyongyang itself. Will knowing that U.S. Air Force stealth bombers are deliberating practicing assassinating him change Kim Jong un's behavior? We'll just have to wait and see.

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