Ballistic Missile Defense could defend US against NKorean and other missiles

BMD system now installed in Greeenland, US and on Navy warships at sea.

Anti-missile weaponry would be able to defend the United States against any ballistic missile fired by the North Korean regime, a US general said Tuesday. “If we felt the North Koreans were going to shoot a ballistic missile at us today, I am comfortable that we would have an effective system that would meet that need,” Air Force General Victor “Gene” Renuart, head of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, told a congressional hearing.

Asked about the reliability of US land-based anti-missile weaponry, Renuart told the Senate Armed Services Committee the military was focused on North Korea as “a very limited threat.” A similar system has been planned for Poland and the Czech Republic that could defend Europe, the UK and even the US from missile attack for a rogue nation like Iran. Russia has thrown a conniption fit (see March 19^th post on CZECH vote delay) .

“North Korea is the system that we’re fixed on,” the USAF general said. North Korea has said it plans to launch a communications satellite next month, scheduled for April 4-8. But Washington says Pyongyang is using the launch as a guise to test a long-range ballistic missile that could,  reach Alaska. North Korea has resisted pressure from the United States and its allies to call off the rocket launch and warned that any attempt to shoot it down would be regarded as an act of war. The reclusive regime has also stepped up its rhetoric against South Korea, even sporadically closing access to a key joint industrial complex.

Obama’s administration has not issued any warning that it plans to shoot down a possible North Korean missile. Kim Jong-il’s regime first tested its Taepodong-2 missile in 2006, but it failed after 40 seconds. Three months later, it staged an underground nuclear weapons test. The reliability of the costly US missile defense system has been the subject of intense debate in the United States, with skeptics questioning whether its land-based portion has been tested under realistic conditions.

The Defense Department on Tuesday said it had confidence in the missile defense system but that the Obama administration was reviewing the future of the program. “I think it’s the belief of people who deal with this matter in this building that the technology works,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. In the event of a North Korean missile launch, the United States could draw on missile defense weaponry on Navy Aegis ships in the Sea of Japan as well as interceptors based in California and Alaska. According to the US Missile Defense Agency, the missile defense system has worked successfully in 37 of 47 tests against a range of missile types since 2001.

In December, the US military said it had conducted a successful test involving a simulated attack of a fake missile mimicking an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from North Korea. The target was launched from Kodiak island in Alaska and the interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But decoys that were supposed to test if the interceptor could distinguish a live missile from counter-measures failed to deploy. The system has cost more than 100 billion dollars so far and would require billions more to deploy.