Tag: missile defense

That is what some are accusing the US of doing:

Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia Program at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in his column before the defense ministerial talks, “Secretary Mattis and his Korean counterparts are likely to seek to accelerate the deployment date of the THAAD missile battery, so that it happens prior to the next Korean election.”

After the talks, Seoul’s ministry said the two officials agreed to push for the deployment as planned, but declined to comment on whether the system would be in place before the election.

Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, said it is significant for the United States to finalize the plan at the earliest possible date as the political situation in South Korea has been unstable with some opposition lawmakers even calling for withdrawing the decision to deploy THAAD.

He said Washington probably sees the possibility for an opposition candidate winning the election, so is rushing to deploy the battery out of concerns that the decision could be overturned by the next government.

“Mattis probably visited South Korea to check the ongoing situation here and make sure of the deployment in accordance with the Trump administration’s plan to advance its global missile defense program to protect against missile attacks from North Korea and Iran,” he said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is pretty significant that the US, ROK and Japanese Navies continue to do this interoperability missile defense exercises.  Hopefully a new administration in the ROK does not stop ROK participation in the future:

The United States, South Korea and Japan kicked off naval missile-defense drills Friday, joining forces to counter the growing threat from North Korea.

The three-day exercise began amid fears that the North may test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile or stage another provocation in connection with Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Friday.

The Yokosuka, Japan-based guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem, Japan’s JDS Kirishima and South Korea’s Sejong the Great participated in missile detection and tracking drills in the waters off the divided peninsula and Japan.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest action the Pentagon has taken in response to any near term launch of a North Korean ICBM:

The U.S. Pentagon has deployed a giant floating radar in anticipation of an intercontinental missile launch from North Korea, CNN reported Wednesday.

The sea-based X-band radar was deployed in response to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s claim in his New Year’s address on Jan. 1 that preparations for an intercontinental ballistic missile have “reached the final stage.”

It has a range of 4,800 km and is capable of monitoring most of China as well as the Korean Peninsula from Okinawa.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the SBX is used to support the US military’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system that has interceptors in Alaska and California that for defense against a limited attack from North Korea.

US ability to shoot down North Korean missile not guaranteed, report says | https://t.co/xRWoBTGJTy

— DPRK Watch (@dprkwatch) January 10, 2017

It has long been suspected that the Lotte Sky Hill Golf Course would be the final site for the deployment of the US THAAD battery and the ROK government has finally made it official:

South Korea selected a golf course in the southeastern part of the nation as the “final” site for an advanced U.S. missile defense system to better counter North Korea’s evolving missile and nuclear threat, the defense ministry said Friday.

The decision comes nearly three months after Seoul and Washington originally chose the Seongsan anti-aircraft missile base in Seongju, 296 kilometers southeast of Seoul, to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system by 2017.

“We have conducted a simulation-based evaluation on three alternative sites in Seongju. The test results showed the Lotte Skyhill Country Club is the most optimal site for THAAD in terms of six principles,” Moon Sang-gyun, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, told Yonhap News Agency.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This is probably not much of a surprise to people following this issue:

The militaries of South Korea and the United States are expected to announce a golf course as the new site for an advanced American antimissile system this week, a defense official here said Sunday.

According to the defense ministry official, evaluations for three candidate sites to host the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Seongju County, located in the southeastern part of the nation, “are virtually complete.” The announcement will likely be made before the end of September after the military briefs Seongju residents on its decision.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the government still faces two problems before the THAAD site can be established.  First of all, according to the article Lotte wants $90.6 million to hand over the golf course which will require additional funds from the National Assembly.  The second issue they face is that the citizens of Gimcheon plan to launch full scale protests to stop the THAAD deployment.

Next year the US military will be testing the THAAD missile system against a North Korean Musudan target:

The United States will carry out an interception test against Musudan-type intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) next year with its advanced missile defense system, following successful trials on short and mid-range missiles, Washington’s missile defense chief said Thursday.

“As those (short-range and mid-range) tests have been done over a period of years and as that success has been achieved (with missile defense shield), we move to longer-range tests,” U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Vice Admiral James D. Syring said in a group interview with local reporters at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters in Seoul.

The agency chief said next year, the U.S. will test the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system against IRBMs to better counter the growing threats from North Korea in the Indo-Asia Pacific region. North Korea’s Musudan missiles are IRBM with a range of more than 3,000 kilometers and a capability of striking the U.S. territory of Guam and Japan.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but for those wondering how effective the THAAD interceptor is, it has been successful in 13 of 13 of its past tests to include shooting down six missiles that replicated current North Korean missiles.

No matter where the THAAD radar is located it will be radiating over somebody so I don’t see what moving the site really gains the government other than a large construction bill and an extended deployment timeline:

The government is facing growing doubts over whether it will can allow the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile battery by next year after President Park Geun-hye raised the possibility of choosing an alternative location within Seongju County in North Gyeongsang Province.

Park said this during a meeting with ruling party lawmakers, Thursday, in an effort to calm the fears of Seongju residents over the safety of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. However, military officials say it will take considerable time to find a new site and build a base for an artillery unit, which means deploying the system by next year would be almost impossible.

On July 13, the Ministry of National Defense announced that the anti-missile battery will be set up in Seongsan-ri, which is currently home to the South Korean Air Force’s air defense artillery unit that operates a Hawk ground-to-air missile battery. The ministry said THAAD will be fully deployed by the end of next year as threats from North Korea’s nuclear and missile program are growing.

“The reason why the two countries can be sure that the deployment will be done by next year is that the artillery unit already exists in Seongsan-ri, meaning that the military does not need to build a site,” a military official said on condition of anonymity.

Finding a new suitable place and building another site from scratch would take at least four to five years and tens of billions of won as the military needs to remove the top of a mountain and purchase adjacent privately owned land. In this case, the deployment is impossible within Park’s tenure and will be handed over to the next government as she completes her term in office in February 2018. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning was in Korea and told the ROK media that along with the deployment of the THAAD battery the US is also looking to upgrade its remaining Patriot PAC-2 batteries to the more advanced PAC-3 configuration:

The United States will focus on upgrading the Patriot PAC-2 missile systems in South Korea to the more advanced PAC-3 anti-missile shield to better protect the Seoul metropolitan areas by 2018, the U.S. Army’s senior civilian official said Tuesday.

“Right now, we are focusing on upgrading the Patriot system that we have here in Korea,” United States Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning told Yonhap News Agency in a group interview held in the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.

He didn’t specifically confirm local reports that Seoul and Washington are planning to replace the PAC-2 system currently in the country with the more lethal PAC-3 system by the end of 2018, although he hinted that such a move is likely.

“I have seen the potential for the upgrades,” the 47-year-old official said during the interview while he visited the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at the air base, adding that the change to a PAC-3 from PAC-2 will allow forces in the country to better cope with evolving nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.  [Yonhap]

Here is what he had to say about the health effects of the THAAD radar:

Asked about local concerns of health risks that might be caused by the powerful radar used in the anti-missile defense system, he pointed out that examination of electromagnetic waves from the operational THAAD battery in Guam showed clearly it poses no problems. The U.S. allowed a group of Korean reporters to visit the U.S. territory and check the level of electromagnetic waves emanating from the AN/TPY-2 radar.

Despite the test results, residents in Seongju, 296 kilometers south of Seoul, have asked the deployment plan to be scrapped, saying that they cannot trust the results. Seoul had tapped the rural town as the site for South Korea’s first THAAD battery last month, with the interceptor system to be operational by 2017.

You can read more at the link.

Visiting U.S. Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning (C) poses with U.S. soldiers in front of Patriot PAC-3 advanced missiles during a visit to the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade of the U.S. Forces Korea’s (USFK) Eighth Army in Osan, south of Seoul, on Aug. 2, 2016. The brigade in charge of intercepting North Korean missiles is expected to run the THAAD missile defense system to be deployed in the country’s southeastern town of Seongju as well. THAAD stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. (Yonhap)