A US Navy Strike Group, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, heads off toward the Korean peninsula in what the US government described as a precautionary measure over North Korea’s nuclear program.

It’s a formidable division since aside from the Carl Vinson, also part of the strike group is the USS Lake Champlain, Carrier Air Wing Seventeen; USS Bunker Hill and the ships of Destroyer Squadron 1. It’s being led by Admiral Nora Tyson.

Dave Benham, US Pacific Command spokesman, said of the deployment, “the number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Pool/GettyImages

Apart from a show of force, aircraft carriers are sent to different regions for military exercises and for stability. In fact, the strike group had just completed military exercises with South Korea last month so this recent deployment by the US is not out of the ordinary.

One of the more significant abilities of the Carl Vinson strike group is its capacity to intercept ballistic missiles. Kim Jong Un’s regime had just tested a medium-range ballistic missile on the Sea of Japan. Its ballistic missile armament includes warheads with a maximum range of 8,000 kilometers, which is well within the distance between North Korea and the US.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the deployment of the US aircraft carrier and other sea assets to the peninsula had the backing of China, which reportedly understood that the world can’t stand idly by while North Korea is flexing its nuclear muscles.

Pool/GettyImages

During the recent meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, for instance, the two discussed at length North Korea. He explained, “President Xi clearly understands, and I think agrees, that the situation has intensified and has reached a certain level of threat that action has to be taken.”