President Donald Trump has headed a tour to Japan to resolve the North Korean issue. And the guy is not exactly being a confidence builder concerning his comprehension of missile defense systems. As stated by the Japan Times, diplomatic sources affirm that using a Monday meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looming, our lucid leader has put low expectations with complaints that "that he couldn't understand why a country of samurai warriors did not take down the missiles." Besides the fact that that is a racist stereotype and katanascannot shoot a missile down, there are technical reasons why the Self-Defense Forces of Japan stood down. Since the Times noted, the rate, altitude, and trajectory of North Korean ballistic missile tests on August 29th and September 15th could have left it "quite tough to destroy them in flight." The August launch of a medium-range missile reached an altitude of 550 kilometers, emphasizing the possible boundaries of U.S. and Japanese forces' Aegis rocket defense. Aegis uses SM-3 missiles to shoot down short-range missiles in mid-course and SM-2 missiles to take down longer-range attacks in their "terminal phase." On the other hand, the first option would require Aegis ships run extremely near the North Korean coast, where they could be counter-attacked, and the second is a risky bet relying upon the "relatively primitive" nation of North Korea's re-entry vehicle technology. As Defense One noted, at its apogee that the September medium-range missile launch which crossed over the Japanese island of Hokkaido attained an altitude of approximately 770 km (470 kilometers), which would defeat Aegis in addition to U.S. forces' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and Western Patriot missile defenses. Together with the missile at such a high altitude, the only possibility to take it down would be in its descent phase--since it was coming down in the ocean beyond Japan when there could be little point.
A failure to take down a North Korean missile could be astonishingly embarrassing, leaving the U.S. and Japan with less support to deal with the threat than ever. Japan's Defense Ministry has confirmed this is why they did not attempt to that there were also "legal problems to clear." Abe has met Trump kindly, greeting him with a Make America Great Again hat and carrying him out for golfing and to a sushi circular bar. But if Abe's somewhat nervous about his counterpart's capability to take care of this, he must be. At a speech to troops, the president told troops, "We dominate the skies. We dominate the seas. We dominate the space and land." He is ominously additional that, "Every once in a while, previously, they underestimated us. It wasn't pleasant for them, was it? It wasn't pleasant." Last month, news broke that the motive Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly called Trump a "moron" was because he desired to expand the U.S. atomic arsenal from 4,000 into 32,000 nukes, even though the current stock is more dominant than ever. The man is playing with fire, and he just doesn't give a damn just how hot it is. He is pouring gasoline. Read more: Syria Is Joining The Paris Climate Agreement, Leaving The US The Last One To Not Sign South Koreans Protest Trump' With Message: 'Shut Up and Get Out' Stephen Hawking Says A.I. Could Be 'Worst Event In Our History’
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February 2019
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