By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
American THAAD missile defense vehicles landed at Osan, South Korea today after almost eight months of waiting. Now the question is how the North and China react.
Increasingly threatened by North Korean missiles — most recently test-launched just yesterday — the South agreed last July to host the US Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. THAAD would provide an additional layer of protection on top of both the Army’s shorter-ranged, lower-altitude Patriot batteries already deployed on the peninsula and the Standard Missiles on Navy Aegis ships offshore. (Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris has argued forcefully for connecting the Army and Navy missile defense networks in his theater).
But THAAD’s greater range means batteries in South Korea can potentially shoot down, not just North Korean missiles, but planes in Chinese airspace. Experts we spoke to in 2015, after Beijing first raised this objection, said it was not a serious threat to China but rather a pretext for throwing wrenches in the US-Korean alliance — but in fact, Chinese pressure had been so heavy-handed it had made Seoul more receptive to THAAD rather than less.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense