By PAUL McLEARY
WASHINGTON — While the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is being forced to answer questions about the viability of its homeland missile defense program after a third failed intercept test in five years, the Pentagon is quickly moving forward with deployments of key radar and missile defense systems to Japan, Guam, Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
The deployments come in response to threats from North Korea and instability in Syria, as well as a hedge against the possibility of conflict with Iran as the US attempts to assist allies in handling some of these potential threats on their own.
It’s widely estimated that there are about 6,300 ballistic missiles outside of US, Russian and Chinese control, a number that MDA expects to climb to almost 8,000 by 2020.
As the recent interrupted shipment of Cuban missile parts headed for North Korea by Panamanian authorities showed, the secretive Kim family dictatorship remains a major worry for allies in the Pacific region, including the United States.
As a show of resolve against Pyongyang, in March the United States announced it was sending a forward-based AN/TPY-2 radar to Japan to complement the one that the island nation already operates.
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