James Mattis says overwhelming force would be used in the event of a North Korean attack on Washington or its allies, following Trump’s threats

The US defense secretary, James Mattis, has warned the North Korean regime that it risked the “end of its regime and the destruction of its people” if it attacked Washington or its allies, as an eruption of brinksmanship from both sides rattled the region.

Mattis’s Wednesday reminder to Pyongyang that the allied militaries “possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth”, capped an unprecedented 24 hours of sabre-rattling sparked by Donald Trump’s surprise threat to rain “fire and fury” down on the Pyongyang regime.

Despite the harsh rhetoric, there was no change in US military deployments or alert status. The defense secretary, however, couched his remarks in the language of traditional deterrence, making clear that such overwhelming force would be used in the event of a North Korean attack.

Trump – without consulting his own security staff – had warned of a devastating onslaught “like the world has never seen” if Kim Jong-un’s government simply persisted in threats against the US. But that line was crossed within hours when Pyongyang announced it was “carefully examining” a plan for a missile strike an “enveloping fire” around the US Pacific territory of Guam.

The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, also spent much of the day struggling to contain the fall-out from Trump’s threats on Tuesday, assuring Americans they could “sleep well at night”, and reassuring shocked allies that there was “no imminent threat of war”.

Heather Nauert, the state department spokeswoman, said that Tillerson spoke with Trump for an hour on Wednesday, and insisted that there was unity of purpose in the administration.

“Whether its the White House state department, the Department of Defense, we are speaking with one voice,” Nauert said.

However, the intervention of senior administration figures to mitigate or reinterpret impromptu declarations from the Oval Office has become a recurring theme of the six chaotic months of the presidency. The dark threat to North Korea, issued from the clubhouse of the Trump golf resort in New Jersey, illustrated the unpredictability of the commander-in-chief, catching Trump’s own advisors unaware with his fiery rhetoric.

Tillerson’s plane was due to make a stop at Guam, which is home to a US military base that includes a submarine squadron, an airbase and a coastguard group, and the secretary of state said he had no plans to change his route.

“Nothing that I have seen, and nothing that I know of, would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson defended Trump over his bellicose language, which shocked US allies and has been heavily criticised in the US and around the world as reckless.

“What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong-un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said. “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the US unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies.”

North Korea details Guam strike plan and calls Trump 'bereft of reason' Read more

But while Tillerson was in the air, Trump posted on Twitter at 8am in Washington. His tone was not as heated as the threats of conflagration he issued on Tuesday from his New Jersey golf resort, but he did explicitly brandish his country’s nuclear weapons in a way his predecessors had generally avoided.

“My first order as president was to renovate and modernise our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before,” Trump tweeted. “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

In fact, it was Barack Obama who approved the major overhaul and modernisation of the US nuclear stockpile, which the Trump administration is now reviewing. The arsenal is considerably smaller than it was at the height of the cold war, in the wake of a succession of arms controls treaties. The US and Russia are now at rough parity. The US has 6,800 warheads, while Russia has 7,000.

Former US defense secretary, William Perry, warned in an email to the Guardian that “empty threats” would weaken nuclear deterrence and US credibility.

“On August 8th, President Trump appeared to threaten first use of nuclear weapons against North Korea,” Perry said. “This is a dangerous departure from historical precedent. The policy and practice of the United States on threats to use nuclear weapons has been consistent for many decades, and for presidents of both political parties.”



Q&A What are North Korea's nuclear capabilities? Show Hide North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests since 2006, so it unquestionably has the capacity to create some form of nuclear bomb.

To function effectively, however, the bomb needs to be small enough to fit on to a missile. Some experts believe the North has already "miniaturised" its nuclear capability, while others believe the regime is still several years away from being able to do so. Japan's defence ministry warned on 8 August that it was possible that Pyongyang had mastered miniaturisation.

North Korea would also need a reliable delivery system for any bomb. Its proven short- and medium-range missiles could reach South Korea and Japan. In July it test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles, placing US cities in range of potential attack, according to US experts.

Tillerson sought to steer his own remarks away from nuclear weapons and toward Washington’s diplomatic efforts to contain North Korea. He argued that the administration’s policy of increasing economic pressure, culminating in new UN sanctions agreed at the security council on the weekend, was beginning to pay off.

“The pressure is starting to show,” Tillerson said. “I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang is beginning to become louder and more threatening. Whether we’ve got them backed into a corner or not is difficult to say, but, diplomatically, you never like to have someone in a corner without a way for them to get out.”

He said Pyongyang could ease the pressure by entering into negotiations with the US, which he has said could come only after Kim Jong-un’s government suspended its missile tests and accepted that it would ultimately have to give up its nuclear weapons programme. Pyongyang, he said, would have to have “the right expectation of what those talks will be about”.

It became clear on Wednesday that Trump had issued his “fire and fury” threat without consulting his national security team on his use of language. He had piece of paper in front of him when he spoke at his golf resort in New Jersey, but the New York Times reported the paper was about the US crisis in opioid use.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the new chief of staff, John Kelly and other national security staff were aware beforehand what “tone” the president would adopt but added: “The words were his own.”

Trump had a telephone consultation with his advisers earlier on Tuesday in which the North Korea crisis was discussed but Trump is said to have given no warning of the language he would use, in which he resorted to one of his favourite turns of phrase, “like the world has never seen”, which he has used frequently to underline the significance of his actions.

Play Video 1:59 Guam governor Eddie Calvo reassures islanders after North Korea threat

Guam’s governor, Eddie Calvo, on Wednesday attempted to reassure residents that there was “no threat” of a North Korean strike, but added that the island was prepared for “any eventuality”.



Calvo added: “Guam is American soil … We are not just a military installation.”

In an online video message, he said he had been told by the US defense and homeland security departments that there was no change in the threat level for his territory.

Q&A Why is North Korea threatening Guam? Show Hide Guam, a 210 sq mile sovereign US territory in the western Pacific Ocean, is used by America as a strategic military base. Almost a third of its land is controlled by the US military and about 6,000 American troops are based there.

The island's location, within range of North Korean medium- and long-range missiles, and military significance to the US make it a logical target for Pyongyang.

As recently as Monday, two US air force B-1B bombers flew from Guam to join their counterparts from South Korea and Japan for a mission over the Korean peninsula, about 2,100 miles away. Read more



A Korean people’s army (KPA) spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that a plan would be put into practice as soon as the order to attack Guam was issued by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

“The KPA strategic force is now carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium- to long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 in order to contain the US major military bases on Guam, including the Anderson air force base,” the spokesman said.

The state-run KCNA news agency quoted a second army spokesman accusing Washington of devising a “preventive war”, adding that any attempt to attack the North would provoke “all-out war, wiping out all the strongholds of enemies, including the US mainland”.

The US should cease its “reckless military provocation” against North Korea to avoid such a reaction, the spokesman added.

In response, South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, called for an overhaul of the country’s armed services, citing an “urgent” need to improve its ability to defend against North Korean missile attacks.

Beijing issued a brief foreign ministry statement on Wednesday calling on “all parties to avoid any words or actions that might escalate the situation”.

God save us from Donald Trump's fire and fury | Richard Wolffe Read more

France and Germany also called on all sides to use restraint. “We are watching the increasing rhetorical escalation regarding the Korean Peninsula with the greatest concern,” the German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters.

Tensions in the region have risen since North Korea carried out two nuclear bomb tests last year and test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month. The UN security council responded last weekend by unanimously agreeing sanctions designed to deprive the regime of about US$1bn in hard currency.