The USS McCain, named after the father and grandfather of Senator John McCain, was dispatched Monday from its port in Japan and ordered to sail for Korea.

The 505-foot guided-missile destroyer carries the U.S. Navy's advanced Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, a sophisticated radar system designed to target enemy missiles and launch precision rockets to intercept and destroy them.

The Navy also shifted the SBX-1, a $900million floating radar platform that has even more powerful equipment for tracking missiles.





Eye on the skies: The $900million SBX-1 radar, which specializes in tracking enemy missiles, was also dispatched to Korea




The two pieces of Navy hardware join an unknown number of F-22 stealth fighter jets that the US Air Force sent to South Korea as both a show of force against the North and a pledge of support for its allies in Seoul.
The Air Force has previously flown B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress bombers over the Korean peninsula with the same aim.

South Korean officials, meanwhile, responded to threats from the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by saying that any attack would receive a 'strong response.'

North Korea will rebuild and restart nuclear facilities including a mothballed uranium enrichment facility and a 5 MW reactor, both in Yongbyon, KCNA quoted a spokesman at its atomic energy agency as saying.
Pyongyang is estimated to have enough fissile material to build up to eight nuclear bombs, although estimates vary.
According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons-grade.
'The General Department of Atomic Energy...decided to adjust and alter the uses of the existing nuclear facilities, to begin with,' KCNA reported.
It said the nuclear facilities would be used for both electricity and military uses.
It was not clear how long it would take to restart the reactor, whose cooling tower was blown up in a made-for-TV event in 2008 under an agreement to suspend the atomic complex.




There have been reports of construction work near where the tower once stood but it was not clear whether the North was rebuilding it.
On Saturday, North Korea said it was entering a 'state of war' with South Korea but the statement was played down by Seoul and the US as the latest piece of 'tough talk' from Pyongyang.
Today the U.N. chief says he fears North Korea is on a collision course with other nations that could lead to war.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the isolated Asian nation appears to be 'on a collision course with the international community' amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, said Tuesday in Andorra 'the current crisis has already gone too far' because of escalating tensions raised by North Korea's threats of war almost daily against the United States and South Korea.
He said international negotiations are urgently needed but he is 'convinced that no one intends to attack' North Korea.
Pyongyang has sought disarmament-for-aid talks with Washington and more domestic loyalty by portraying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a powerful commander.

The United States has responded to the threats by sending F-22 Raptors to join South Korean military exercises (file photo)

i hope the aboki mallams in the North will not start another orgy of killings claiming American is fighting one of the Prophets of Islam..

I thought that by now North Korea would have made real their empty threat.

Metchewwwww... not impressed. You should see our Ghana Armed Forces war machines.

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Trump is not going to war with North Korea. He is not a puppet of Washington 's warmongering swamp

The US will not fire a single shot at NK cos they wouldn't want to received another disgraceful defeat from the North Koreans, the defeat suffered by the US in the Korean war is still very fresh in their memory.