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OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea: U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets can fly to North Korea in minutes from this base 48 miles (77 kilometers) south of the Demilitarized Zone. Across the border are hundreds of North Korean artillery systems aimed at Seoul and long-range missiles capable of hitting Japan, Hawaii, and possibly the U.S. mainland.
North Korea's dogged pursuit of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons and its deployment of mobile artillery systems targeting South Korea's capital have made air power an even more important part of the U.S. military machinery amassed to deter the communist country.
The South Korean and U.S. armies still would play a critical role in any fight breaking the armistice that effectively ended the 1950-1953 Korean War. But U.S. Air Force officials say their planes are particularly suited to destroying deadly North Korean weapons that would threaten not only South Korea but the United States and its allies.
“Air power is exceptionally important in the Korean fight,” General Paul V. Hester, the Pacific Air Forces commander, told The Associated Press on a recent trip to South Korea from his Hawaii headquarters. “Air power takes care of the deep targets in our business.”
North Korea raised the stakes of the decades-long military standoff in October when it exploded a nuclear device in a test, proving
