Better Tech Is Arriving to Defend Against North Korean Missiles. It Won’t Cool Regional Tensions - Defense One: Next year, the U.S. plans to deploy a shipboard interceptor to help protect Japan. China and Russia will not be amused.
The new anti-missile system the U.S. is sending to South Korea is a far-from-perfect solution. Though it will help protect Seoul against North Korean missiles, it antagonizes China while leaving allies like Japan still vulnerable. Next year, a new shipboard interceptor is slated to arrive in the region, promising more protection — and more controversy.
On Monday, U.S. troops began setting up the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile batteries in South Korea. The deployment, announced last year and sped up by several months after a quartet of North Korean missile launches, brings to the Korean peninsula land-based missile launchers and sophisticated radars. China views the move as hostile because the radars could allow the U.S. to better track some Chinese missiles.
“It’s a classic case of a security trilemma, where actions taken by one country in response to the actions of another—here the deployment of enhanced U.S.[missile defense] capabilities to offset North Korea’s growing missile capabilities—complicate relations with a third player,” Rod Lyon explained in The National Interest.
