Tensions rise as U.S. moves missile interceptor batteries to Guam

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  The probability of a nuclear exchange between North Korea and other nations including the U.S. has increased further after Pentagon (U.S military institution). has announced that it would be mobilising ground-based THAAD missile-interceptor batteries (The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher and interceptor missiles) to protect its military bases on Guam, a U.S. territory located 3,380 km southeast of North Korea and home to 6,000 American military personnel, submarines and bombers.
• The move has been condemned by North Korea has U.S. aggression and has warned that a war could break out ‘today or tomorrow’.
• However, Pentagon has argued that its deployment would only strengthen U.S. regional defence posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat.
• The North Korean military cautioned that it had received final approval for military action against the U.S., particularly responding to what it called the ‘provocative U.S. use of nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers in ongoing war games with South Korea.’
• Even U.S. Defence Secretary has declared that North Korea posed “a real and clear danger” to South Korea, Japan and America, and it is allegedly that the untested North Korean Musudan missile had a theoretical range of 3,000 km and this could put all of South Korea and Japan within its reach.
• North Korea, meanwhile has held firm to its blockade of the South from the Kaesong factory park run, which both nations operate jointly.

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Background:              

• Guam was ceded to the US by Spain in 1898. Captured by the Japanese in 1941, it was retaken by the US three years later. The military installation on the island is one of the most strategically important US bases in the Pacific. 
• Location: Oceania, island in the North Pacific Ocean, about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines. Guam is the largest and southernmost island in the Marianas Archipelago.
• Today Guam is an unincorporated, organized territory of the United States. The people of Guam have been U.S. citizens since 1950.
• Guam’s economy is based on tourism and U.S. military spending (U.S. naval and air force bases occupy one-third of the land on Guam).