by Yoo Seungki
SEOUL, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The first Pentagon chief under Trump administration on Friday reaffirmed the agreement to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea during his talks in Seoul with his counterpart, Defense Minister Han Min-koo.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis arrived here Thursday, when he met with Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn who is serving as acting South Korean president following the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye as well as Kim Kwan-jin, top presidential security advisor.
During the meetings, Mattis said the Trump administration places a priority on the U.S.-South Korean alliance and that no other nation needs to be worried about THAAD except the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Meeting with Minister Han, the Pentagon chief defended the THAAD deployment which he described as defensive in nature because it only aims to protect South Korean people and U.S. forces stationed here from DPRK threats.
However, nobody would naively believe it as the THAAD installation implies South Korea becomes part of the U.S. missile defense networking in Northeast Asia involving the United States and its two allies, the other being Japan.
The MD networking will foster arms race given the relationship between ballistic missiles and anti-missile systems that can be likened to a fight between spears and shields.
Such fight would never come to an end, with more shields demanding more spears on the other side of the two. The U.S. missile shield could bring more nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to the region.
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