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Seoul finally decides it needs a missile defense plan

South Korea and the United States are drawing up a joint contingency plan to employ Washington’s missile defense (MD) system against growing threats from North Korea’s ballistic missiles, a government source here said Tuesday.

The joint contingency plan would employ not only missiles and surveillance equipment the U.S. Forces Korea and South Korea have been developing under their Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) project, but also key assets of the U.S. MD system, according to the source.

The U.S. air defense includes the X-band radar system, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system and the high-altitude, unmanned aerial vehicle, Global Hawk. [Yonhap]

Better late than never. Despite the objections of China, North Korea’s number one supplier of missile technology and a major exporter of chutzpah, the arrangement under discussion would have the U.S. sharing intelligence, technology, and backup, and the South supplying its flat refusal to join in an integrated air defense system with the U.S. and Japan. Seoul also seems to be leaning toward the deployment of THAAD.

Great. So now tell me who’s going to pay for it.

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3 Responses

  1. Don’t know how much help this will be, frankly. The NORKs are so close that the time from launch to impact is likely to be too small for an anti missile system to acquire and engage even the second-generation SSM systems the DPRKA fields. The Israeli Iron Dome system has had issues intercepting Hamas’ lame little homemade rockets and they are slower than anything the NORKs will throw. Cost is prohibitive, and the benefit debatable. Sounds more like a contractor’s windfall to me…

  2. What about US spending $500 million on scrap heap for Afghan government

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/10/500m-worth-us-bought-planes-destroyed-by-afghans-sold-as-scrap-for-6-cents/

    Sixteen military transport planes bought by the United States government for the Afghan Air Force (AAF) at a cost of nearly $500 million were recently destroyed by the Afghan military and sold for scrap parts at around six cents per pound, prompting a government inquiry to determine why millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on the ill-fated program.

  3. Given how crap North Koreas missiles are, wouldn’t something like the Iron Dome from Israel be better and cheaper?