The demilitarised zone (DMZ) is a heavily mined, four-km-wide (2.5-mile-wide) strip of land lined with barbed wire running across the Korean peninsula, with soldiers on both sides in a continual eyeball-to-eyeball standoff.
The Trump administration hopes the U.S. and its allies will achieve its objectives through "peaceable means or ultimately by whatever means are necessary" to protect South Korea and stabilise the region.
Pence says, "North Korea would do well not to test his resolve".
Speaking on Sunday before a handful of the 28,500 U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea, Pence denounced the latest North Korea test as a "provocation".
Trump has ordered a navy strike group flagshipped by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to head to the region as a show of force as his officials assess tougher economic sanctions as well as military options against the North. "And, so, we're working together with our allies and partners and with the Chinese leadership to develop a range of options", McMaster told ABC's 'This Week'.
"There is an global consensus now, including the Chinese leadership, that this is a situation that just can not continue".
On Saturday the regime gave a huge show of strength with a parade of military hardware feared to have featured a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) stated that the attempted launch was conducted from the area near North Korea's eastern port city of Sinpo, but likely ended in a failure. New weapons are normally unveiled at these occasions, and today a submarine-launched ballistic missile has been shown for the first time, likely to be the same model as the SLBM that was successfully test-fired in August previous year.
On Monday, hundreds of members of the Korean People's Army (KPA) crowded the plaza of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang to pay tribute to past leaders and vow loyalty to Kim Jong Un, according to state media Rodong Sinmun.
Pang Zhongying of the School of International Studies at Beijing's Renmin University agreed that military action was unlikely, but said another North Korean nuclear test would mark "the crossing of a red line" that China was prepared to respond to.
Asked if he was confident China will pressure North Korea in a meaningful way, McMaster replied "We'll see what happens".
But the loose talk wasn't confined to Trump's Twitter timeline.
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According to Rogozin, training to shoot is a way of teaching the robot to instantaneously prioritize targets and make decisions. The robot was unveiled in 2016 by the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, the country's military research arm.
Trump held a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month and has hoped to use trade as a negotiating tool for Xi's cooperation on North Korea.
New satellite images show in great detail how Kim Jong-un is escalating North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. Under his watch, North Korea has aggressively pursued a goal of putting a nuclear warhead on an ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland.
"U.S. Pacific Command is fully committed to working closely with our allies in the Republic of Korea and in Japan to maintain security", the military said in a statement on Sunday.
McMaster said the latest missile test, which failed, just fits into a pattern of "provocative and destabilising and threatening" behaviour on the part of the North Korean regime.
"We had good intelligence before the launch and good intelligence after the launch", the adviser told reporters on condition of anonymity.
The officials are hopeful China and Russian Federation would agree to tighter United Nations sanctions on North Korea if it conducts another nuclear test.
Beijing banned imports of North Korean coal on February 26, cutting off Pyongyang's most important export.
Trump turned to Twitter over the weekend to underscore the key importance of cooperation with China on the Korean problem.
The sharp language came after US President Donald Trump said the North Korea problem "will be taken care of", as speculation mounts that the state could be preparing another nuclear or missile test.
"There is certain to be powerful punitive measure that will be hard for the North Korean regime to endure", the South's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In his ABC interview, McMaster said that Trump had directed USA military, diplomatic and intelligence officials to provide him with options - in concertation with regional allies including China - that could be used "if the North Korea regime refuses to denuclearize".
Sunday's missile launch was a calculated move, the China Daily newspaper said in an editorial.
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