When US President Donald Trump boasted last week that he had sent an "armada" as a warning to North Korea, the aircraft carrier strike group he spoke of was still far from the Korean Peninsula, and headed in the opposite direction.
It was even farther away over the weekend, moving through the Sunda Strait and then into the Indian Ocean, as North Korea displayed what appeared to be new missiles at a parade and staged a failed missile test.
The US military's Pacific Command explained yesterday that the strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-initially planned period of training with Australia. But it was now "proceeding to the Western Pacific as ordered", it said.
The perceived communications mixup has raised eyebrows among Korea experts, who wonder whether it erodes the Trump Administration's credibility at a time when US rhetoric about the North's advancing nuclear and missile capabilities are raising concerns about a potential conflict.
"If you threaten them and your threat is not credible, it's only going to undermine whatever your policy toward them is.
