Just two days after Donald Trump authorized the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air force base, the Third Fleet’s forward-deployed strike group has set sail for the Korean Peninsula. Originally on their way from Singapore to Australia to engage in some training and port calls, the carrier group has diverted to the Western Pacific in response to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un aggressively ramps up his ballistic missile test program. In a statement, Commander Dave Benham (Spokesman for the US Pacific Command) stated the “Third Fleet ships operate forward with a purpose-to safeguard US interests in the Western Pacific. The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible, and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability”. On Wednesday North Korea had launched a ballistic missile into the East Sea, just before a meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. While it is believed the meeting was focused on China’s ability to exert economic pressure over North Korea in order to curtail their increasingly offensive posture, US Secretary Rex Tillerson’s statement following these event indicates that the US may be willing to act unilaterally if China is unwilling to exert pressure. Tillerson stated America’s “policy of strategic patience has ended” and “all options are on the table” regarding North Korea.

What’s most interesting about the past weeks events is not necessarily the frequency of the events. Two incidents of action hardly make and interventionist. Rather its how President Trump has chosen to intervene which is most confounding. A major platform of Trump’s camping during the election cycle was to criticize the President Obama’s Middle Eastern policy. Trump claimed, although not as eloquently as this, that the US needs to hang up the global policemen uniform and focus on domestic affairs. And yet in the span of one week he has launched a direct missile attack, not apart of a coalition, against a legitimately elected foreign leader and sent an strike group which, contains an air craft carrier to one of the most unstable regions on the planet. Of the 20 in-service aircraft carriers globally, America owns 10 of them. The next biggest owner is Italy with 2. The carrier can carry 90 fixed wing and helicopters and has a crew of 6062 with the optionally ability to also house a contingent of the United States Marine Force, a amphibious to land raiding unit which has been engaged in almost every American conflict since WW2. President Trump hasn’t simply sent a ship, he has sent a slice of American sovereignty with very real military power and in doing so has indicated that American is adopting a very serious offensive posture.

What is troubling to see is how this fits into the US’s foreign policy over the next four years. Is this simply a show of force to let the world and the American public know that an isolationist stance doesn’t mean the US has lost any of its military dominance. Or perhaps President Trump has had a change of heart and now believes the US should adopt a revisionist foreign policy in regards to those nations not deemed to be instep to the world order. With so many unknowns and conflicting signals it may be advisable for the Trump administration to clarify its foreign policy stance and by doing so to remove the threat of miscalculation in an already highly-strung situation. However given President Trumps tendency to keep things close to his chest and engage in deceit masked as contradiction, it wouldn’t be surprising if we saw more unexpected moves out of Washington.