Today, North Korea’s ability to make good on its threat is limited. Its air force is outdated, undertrained and frequently short of fuel. But the threat signaled another major escalation in a rhetorical exchange that many fear could push Pyongyang and Washington into a conflict, even an unintended one.
Mr. Ri’s reference to the declaration of war appeared to refer to Mr. Trump’s assertion in a Twitter message over the weekend that the North Korean leadership may not “be around much longer” if it continues its threats.
Mr. Ri said that the question of “who would be around much longer will be answered” by North Korea.
It is possible that North Korea’s foreign minister wanted to make clear that it, too, could threaten pre-emptive military action, just as the United States has repeatedly suggested in recent months.
But Mr. Trump’s tweet over the weekend appeared to go further, suggesting that mere threats, rather than a military attack, could drive him to wipe out the country. Whether that was one of his characteristic outbursts or a strategic effort to intimidate North Korea was not clear — even to some of his advisers.
“If the goal is to intimidate the North Koreans, it needs to be understood that they are really hard to intimidate,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a Korea expert who is a former deputy assistant secretary of state.
“They’re not used to an American president saying these things,” Mr. Revere said. “They’re also masters at responding when their leader is attacked.”
The escalation of threats came two days after American warplanes flew close to the North’s coast, going farther north of the Demilitarized Zone — the dividing line between North and South — than any other American air mission in the past century. The Air Force advertised the exercise, which involved only American aircraft, as a direct response to North Korea’s accelerated missile launches and a nuclear test two weeks ago.
Mr. Ri, who is well connected to the country’s top leadership, also said last week that the North was considering conducting an atmospheric nuclear test, which would be the first by any nation in 37 years.
It is unclear whether the North is capable of pulling off such a test, which is far more complicated and dangerous than the underground testing it has done six times in the past 11 years. But a senior Trump administration official said over the weekend that the Pentagon and intelligence agencies were taking the threat seriously and beginning to devise possible responses — including pre-emptive military strikes — for the White House.
And Col. Robert Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday that if North Korea did not stop its provocative actions, “we will make sure that we provide options to the president to deal with North Korea.”
The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, so hostilities have merely been in abeyance since then. Since then the North has often said that the United States was bringing the two countries “to the brink of war.”
But Mr. Ri’s remark about taking on American aircraft was new, and raised the possibility of a clash, even if a North Korean attack failed. He also said that “all options will be on the operations table of the supreme leadership” of North Korea.
Political analysts said the Trump administration should consider Mr. Ri’s comments more than just verbal volleys.
“I think they’re dangerously close to some kind of a conflict with North Korea,” said Jae H. Ku, the director of the U.S. Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
“This is something I feared,” he said. “When we go down this road, our escalation could lead to accidental shootouts, and it may not be so accidental.”
The increasing acrimony also alarmed China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner, which strongly opposes the North’s missile and nuclear tests but has repeatedly urged de-escalation. “We want things to calm down,” China’s United Nations ambassador, Liu Jieyi, was quoted by Reuters as saying on Monday. “It’s getting too dangerous and it’s in nobody’s interest.”
North Korea had already deemed Mr. Trump’s threat at the United Nations — to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States were forced to defend itself or its allies — a declaration of war.
The North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said last week: “Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
If North Korea were to shoot down a United States military aircraft, it would not be the first time that had happened since the 1950-53 Korean War. In April 1969, the North shot down an unarmed United States Lockheed EC-121 spy plane on a North Korean intelligence-gathering mission over the Sea of Japan. The 31 resulting deaths amounted to one of the biggest single losses of American military lives during the Cold War.
North Korean state radio said at the time that the aircraft had penetrated “deep into the airspace” of the country. The Defense Department said the plane was 50 nautical miles off the North Korean coast.
The North’s new assertions that the United States has declared war on the isolated country of 25 million people echo threats periodically made by state propaganda.
In August, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling party, warned that American sanctions against Pyongyang would result in the United States’ being “catapulted into an unimaginable sea of fire.”
In March, North Korea released a propaganda video depicting a nuclear strike on Washington. With an animated mushroom cloud rising over the city, the English subtitle said, “If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.”
“The United States must choose!” the video continued. “It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.”
North Korea also frequently threatens to turn Seoul, the South Korean capital, into a “sea of fire.” Mr. Trump’s comment in August that any threats by North Korea would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” echoed that imagery.
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