US military 'is going to have to be mentally prepared' for North Korea ground war, warns Marine Corps chief

'It will be a very, very kinetic, physical, violent fight over some really, really tough ground,' says General Robert Neller

Commandant of the Marine Corps General Robert Neller says he expects the Pacific and Russia to be the focus of future conflicts outside of the Middle East (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

America's military must prepare for a “physical, violent” ground war with North Korea, according to the head of the US Marine Corps.

General Robert Neller said “everybody is going to have to be mentally prepared” for the possibility of conflict with the secretive communist state, although he made clear he was not predicting a war.

“I’m not trying to glorify this. I believe however it turns out it will be a very, very kinetic, physical, violent fight over some really, really tough ground and everybody is going to have to be mentally prepared,” he said.

The Marine Corps commandant was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, US broadcaster CNN reported.

His comments come amid heightened tensions between North Korea and the US.

Last year the pariah state conducted a series of long-range intercontinental missile tests, some of which flew over the Japanese mainland.

In September it claimed that it had successfully tested a nuclear weapon that could be loaded on to a long-range missile.

Hours after seismologists had detected an earth tremors, it said its sixth nuclear test had been a "perfect success". Experts later disputed this claim.

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have also exchanged a series insults.

After the Mr Kim boasted about his nuclear button, Mr Trump responded by claiming his was "a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

General Neller did not mention his leader's comments but he said that any war with North Korea would be a “different sort of fight” that would not just involve “a bunch of things flying around.”

His assessment comes just a month after he warned 300 marines stationed in Norway to prepare for a “bigass fight.”

“I hope I’m wrong, but there’s a war coming,” he told the Marine rotational force at the Norwegian Home Guard base near Trondheim in December.

“You’re in a fight here, an informational fight, a political fight, by your presence,” he said.