The US, Japan and South Korea are planning to link their radar systems to better track missiles from North Korea and potentially speed up their responses to a launch by Pyongyang, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
(Bloomberg) — The US, Japan and South Korea are planning to link their radar systems to better track missiles from North Korea and potentially speed up their responses to a launch by Pyongyang, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
A broad agreement on the plan is likely to come at a joint defense meeting in Singapore in June, Yomiuri reported Tuesday, citing government officials it didn’t identify. A recent warming of ties between Seoul and Tokyo, which included a resumption of shuttle diplomacy scuttled for about a dozen years over political tensions, has helped advance the arrangement, it said.
Under the agreement, the command-and-control centers used by the militaries of Japan and South Korea, as well as US forces in both countries, would be fed through the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii. This would better provide instantaneous data on missile flights, while keeping a distance between South Korea and Japan, which each have a military alliance with the US but are not mutual allies, it said.
The arrangement would be one of the most tangible efforts to improve joint efforts to keep track of North Korean missiles as a part of the recent rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo.
Cooperation among the three countries picked up pace when Yoon Suk Yeol became South Korea’s president a year ago, pledging to take a tough line on North Korea and advancing security policies that better aligned with those of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government.
Read: How Kim Jong Un Is Building a Nuclear North Korea: QuickTake
Since then, the US, South Korea and Japan have trained together, including on joint drills centered on intercepting missiles and hunting submarines — exercises that have taken on greater importance with North Korea deploying new systems to deliver strikes in the air and at sea.
At the same time, Kim Jong Un’s regime has rolled out new rockets that are quick to deploy, maneuverable in flight and designed to deliver nuclear strikes to all of Japan and South Korea, which host the bulk of US troops in the region.
Given their proximity, North Korea’s missiles could deliver a strike on most parts of South Korea in less than five minutes from launch and on Japan within about 15 minutes from launch, highlighting the need for all three to instantaneously track missiles.
But Japan’s radar system has had trouble spotting the initial stages of missile launches from western parts of North Korea, experts have said. Japan has also had embarrassing incidents where it has lost track of multistage missiles fired from North Korea.
Read: North Korean Missile Alert Sparks Fear and Confusion in Japan
The most recent incident took place last month, when Japan issued an alert to people on the main northern island of Hokkaido about a North Korean missile possibly heading their way. The missile did not threaten the island and the alert was lifted a few minutes later — with the government saying it lost track of the missile on radar and apologizing.
The radar alliance would be under the auspices of a 2014 information-sharing pact among the three countries and involve systems already deployed, the paper said. This could allay any possible protests from China.
Yoon has also taken on China, with his government telling Beijing that the possible operation of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system was a matter of South Korea’s self-defense and “not negotiable.” Beijing objects to the shield over concerns its powerful radar would allow spying on its own missile systems.
A conflict several years ago over Thaad led to economic retaliation from Beijing that shaved an estimated 0.4 percentage points off South Korea’s gross domestic product expansion in 2017.
–With assistance from Gareth Allan and Isabel Reynolds.
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