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| Image: Wiki Commons |
By John Power
South Korea threatened to shoot down North Korea’s projectile, despite apparently lacking the capability to do so.
Ahead of North Korea’s widely condemned rocket launch on Sunday, South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense threatened to shoot down the projectile if it approached its territory.
“The military is strengthening its air defense posture to intercept the North Korean missile or its debris that could fall on our land or in our waters,” ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told media on February 4.
Ultimately, the rocket didn’t enter South Korean airspace and Seoul was never called to make good on its vow. In reality, however, it probably couldn’t have even it wanted to. Seoul made an empty threat, weapons experts told The Diplomat, because its missile defense system is incapable of intercepting the type of long-range rocket that was launched by Pyongyang.
South Korea’s military had said it had readied Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) surface-to-air missiles, and could call upon the United States Forces Korea to deploy its PAC-3 missiles if necessary.
But George Lewis, an analyst at the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University, said the missile defense systems had ranges in the tens of kilometers, making them little use against Pyongyang’s rocket.
Read the full story at The Diplomat