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S.Korea keeps cautious stance on U.S. missile defense deployment

Xinhua, September 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

A top military officer of South Korea's air force on Tuesday showed a cautious stance on the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system dubbed Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Jeong Kyeong-doo, who was named as the air force chief of staff a week earlier, told a parliamentary audit of the Air Force headquarters that the THAAD deployment has merits and demerits from the military perspective, saying the defense ministry would decide on it after considering various security situations, including national interest.

His comments were in line with the position of the defense ministry, which has maintained the so-called "strategic ambiguity" on the issue, which is billed as "three Nos"-- No request, No consultation and No decision.

It means that there has been no request from the U.S. for the THAAD deployment and no consultations between Seoul and Washington over the issue, and so no decision has been made yet.

The top air force officer said that preconditions are required to run a THAAD battery here on the peninsula, citing the linkage of the missile defense system to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, which mean an array of airborne surveillance and reconnaissance platforms.

Jeong said that the THAAD would have effectiveness only when an integrated system between the ISR assets and the THAAD is established to detect, identify and intercept missiles on a real- time basis given the short distance of the peninsula.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s short-range missiles and multiple rocket launchers are known to be capable of striking Seoul within a minute and the entire South Korean territory in 10 minutes. Pyongyang is believed to own at least 700 short-range attack missiles, which fly at an altitude of less than 20 km.

The THAAD, developed by the U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin, is designed to shoot down missiles at an altitude of 40- 150 km. South Korea is developing its own missile defense technology, called Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), to intercept missiles at an altitude of less than 40 km.

Some experts said that there is no reason for the DPRK to use medium- and long-range missiles, required to fly high into the sky before falling down to the target, as it already has short-range missiles that can strike the South Korean territory at a much faster pace. Endi