North Korea might be on the verge of a terrifying breakthrough: an intercontinental ballistic missile that could someday reach the West Coast of the United States. And a big step in that direction cold come any day now.
A pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan is reporting that the test of a new missile, more sophisticated than the one fired Feb. 11, is “
not far away,”according to a UPI report. And the Feb. 11 missile was nevertheless a big concern: experts
told NBC Newsthat it was an
upgraded version of the submarine-launched missileit fired in August and had a range of 1,200 miles – more than far enough to reach Japan, a U.S. treaty ally.
The missile threat from North Korea puts U.S. sailors and their regional allies on the front lines of preventing a possible catastrophe if conflict breaks out with Pyongyang’s
isolated Kim dictatorship. The Navy’s sophisticated ballistic missile defense system is the front line against North Korea, which U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Harry Harris has repeatedly called the largest threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific.
The steadily escalating threat from North Korea is something for which the U.S., South Korea and Japan have been preparing for years. The high-tech destroyers and cruiser the Navy sends to Japan have been upgraded to include the latest in ballistic missile defense technology. In 2015, the Navy sent the cruiser Chancellorsville, one of the deadliest in the fleet with a fully upgraded combat suite called AEGIS Baseline 9, to be forward-based in Yokosuka.
During the most recent test, which splashed into the sea about 300 miles from its launch point, the Navy had a ship on patrol monitoring the launch, said Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet.
“U.S. Navy ships conduct routine Ballistic Missile Defense patrols regularly and routinely as part of a layered defense of the United States, Japan and South Korea,” Knight said. “All U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers that are currently forward deployed to Japan are equipped with the Aegis weapons system and most are Ballistic Missile Defense-capable.”
Knight pointed to a Feb. 3 joint test of the SM-3 Block IIA missile by the U.S. and Japan, which successfully intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile over the Pacific. The missile was fired from a Navy test range in Hawaii and was detected and shot down by the destroyer John Paul Jones, which is based in Pearl Harbor.
“We continue to support our Japanese and South Korean allies’ efforts to strengthen their respective BMD capabilities through robust cooperation, information sharing and exercises at sea,”
Harris has said the security relationship between the U.S., Japan and Korea will be the key to deterring the North Korean threat.
“[We] must consider every possible step to defend the U.S. homeland and defend our allies,” Harris said in
a speech at Yokota Air Base in Japan in October. “That’s why I continue to emphasize trilateral cooperation between Japan, South Korea and the United States. And that’s why all nations must continue to rally the international community to loudly condemn North Korea’s aberrational behavior and be prepared to counter this challenge.”
Both South Korea and Japan have been investing heavily in both anti-submarine and ballistic missile defense capabilities to combat the threat from North Korean missiles, said Eric Wertheim, a naval expert and author of The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World.
Both South Korea and Japan are planning to install the same high-tech combat suite in the Chancellorsville, which is the best system on the waterfront for BMD. They are also buying the SM-3 Block IIA missile, which was developed between the U.S. and Japan to defeat the kind of medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles that pose greatest threat to Japan and South Korea, Wertheim said.
In addition, South Korea is beefing up is sub-hunting skills. The South Koreans plan to buy retired Navy sub hunters the S-3 Vikings and are looking to invest in the P-8 Poseidon sub hunting aircraft as well, Wertheim said.
“One tier is to counter those subs,” Wertheim said. “But South Korea is also building three new KDX-III destroyers and they plan to install Baseline 9. So South Korea is looking to link in with the U.S. and Japan in BMD.”
Still, despite the heavy investment in capabilities in the region, shooting down a North Korean missile is not a sure bet.
“It’s a scary prospect,” Wertheim said. “Even though we can defend against it, there are no guarantees.”
