Japan is planning to deploy a new ground-based missile defence system as its third layer of protection in response to the North Korean ballistic missile threat, local media said yesterday..
Japan is planning to deploy a new ground-based missile defence system as its third layer of protection in response to the North Korean ballistic missile threat, local media said yesterday.
This additional layer, known as the Aegis Ashore system, will supplement its current defences that Tokyo has acknowledged could be woefully inadequate in the case of a North Korean missile attack.
Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera, who is currently in Washington, was likely to sound out his United States counterpart, Mr James Mattis, on the plan.
The duo, alongside Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were slated to meet for high-level “two- plus-two” talks that began at 9.45am US time yesterday (9.45pm in Singapore) .
The Aegis Ashore system, to be developed by Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer, is the land-based version of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) advanced radar units mounted on Aegis warships that patrol Japan round the clock.
The SM-3 can intercept ballistic missiles outside the earth’s atmosphere by up to an altitude of 500km.
