News Story: South Korea shows off massive weapons to celebrate Armed Forces Day

M-SAM part of the KAMD system (File Photo)

SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's military on Thursday showed off massive strategic weapons at an event to celebrate the 69th anniversary of Armed Forces Day amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Key strategic weapons, including homegrown ballistic missiles, were displayed at the celebration function that was broadcast live and held at the headquarters of the Navy's Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 70 km south of Seoul.

President Moon Jae-in and Defense Minister Song Young-moo inspected core military assets of the so-called "three-axis" defense platform, including the Kill Chain, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR).

The country's indigenous Hyunmoo ballistic missiles were on display. Among them, the Hyunmoo-2C missiles were made public for the first time at the ceremony.

A Hyunmoo ballistic missile launcher vehicle (File Photo)

Hyunmoo ballistic missiles involve Hyunmoo-2A and Hyunmoo-2B which have a range of 300 km and 500 km each as well as Hyunmoo-2C that can fly as far as 800 km and hit the entire territory of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Also on display was Hyunmoo-3 cruise missiles that can travel as far as 1,000 km and has a high striking precision, though it has less destructive power than Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missiles.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: DPRK slams Japanese lawmaker for drumming up military rearmament

PYONGYANG, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Wednesday slammed a Japanese lawmaker for drumming up military rearmament by creating various pretexts of threats from the DPRK.

The official daily Rodong Sinmun said that Katsuyuki Kawai, who is also a special aide to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has recently said there is need to discuss the issue of arming its Self-Defense Forces with intermediate-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

The Japanese lawmaker also recently met with the head of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based policy research institute, and asserted the need to introduce cruise missiles into Self-Defense Forces, said the official daily of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

Read the full story at Xinhua

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PacificSentinel: If the North Koreans don't want Japan to have Cruise/Ballistic Missiles then it's quite simple, remove the motivation for the acquisition, STOP launching Ballistic Missiles over Japan and threatening to sink their island, then there won't be a need for the Missiles.

News Story: S. Korea consults with U.S. to mobilize strategic assets after DPRK's nuke test

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's defense ministry said it was consulting with the U.S. side on the mobilization of U.S. strategic military assets after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s sixth nuclear test.

The ministry said in a report to the parliamentary defense committee that it would push for the mobilization of the U.S. strategic assets, such as a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier and strategic bombers, in cooperation with the United States.

For the stand-alone action, the South Korean military planned to conduct a live-fire drill with "Taurus" air-to-ground guided missiles which is known to have a range of about 500 km, carried by F-15K fighter jets, according to the report cited by local media outlets.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: Report Suggests Seoul Might Use German Cruise Missiles in Case of N Korea Attack

South Korea may use German-supplied Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles against Pyongyang in case of military conflict with North Korea in the first combat mission of one of the world's strongest weapons, German newspaper Die Welt reported, citing military sources.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The missiles may be released by F-15K Korean fighters to hit reinforced targets hundreds of kilometers away, such as bunkers in the vicinity of North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, Die Welt newspaper claimed.

The Taurus KEPD 350 is an air-launched cruise missile used by Germany, Spain and South Korea. 

News Report: Japan to Mull Procuring Offensive Arms for First Time Since WWII

Japan’s Defense Ministry will decide by next summer whether it needs to stock offensive weapons, in what may be the first such decision since the end of World War Two, local media said Saturday.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — A group of lawmakers led by the recently-appointed Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera proposed in March that the Self-Defense Forces should have the ability to preemptively strike enemy bases after a string of North Korea’s rocket tests.

The Defense Ministry’s decision on whether to acquire arms with a long enough range to strike overseas territories will be enshrined in military policy guidelines that will become part of the next five-year defense program, according to the Nikkei newspaper.

Japan has avoided stockpiling cruise missiles and other strategic offensive weapons and has instead relied on the United States for protection. But Japan’s then Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama said in 1956 the nation was not obliged to calmly await its destruction in case of an attack.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Report: Pyongyang Says N. Korean Rockets May Strike Anywhere Around World

Pukguksong-2 Ballistic Missile test launch

North Korea celebrates the day of strategic forces of the Korean People's Army.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — North Korea celebrates Monday the day of strategic forces of the Korean People's Army (KPA) with a statement in its state-run newspaper that the country's rockets may strike anywhere in the world.

North Korean state Rodong Sinmun newspaper issued an article which said that the KPA's strategic forces can strike at any time and anywhere. The article provided the photos of the Pyongyang's rockets and said that the all the launches might be successful due to high-speed mobile missile launchers which make it impossible to detect them.

The newspaper reminded about recent successful launches of ballistic missiles Hwasong-12, Pukguksong-2, as well as cruise missiles.

The situation on the Korean peninsula has become aggravated in recent months due to a series of missile launches and nuclear tests conducted by Pyongyang, all of which are claimed to be in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The most recent launch took place on June 8, when North Korea carried out a launch of short-range anti-ship missiles, reportedly flying some 124 miles before dropping into the Sea of Japan.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Story: Chinese Missiles Can Wipe Out US Bases In Japan - Aegis, THAAD Can Stop Em

A Chinese Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM)

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: A Chinese surprise attack tomorrow could annihilate US forces and bases in Japan, two Navy officers found. But deploying more missile defenses — Army THAAD and Navy Aegis — would protect most targets north of Okinawa, Commanders Thomas Shugart and Javier Gonzalez found in simulations. Such a stronger defense, in turn, would reduce the temptation for Beijing to strike first in a crisis.

This scenario isn’t implausible. Chinese history and doctrine since 1949 show a marked preference for surprise attack. They struck Korea in 1950, India in 1962, Vietnam in 1974 and ’79. The Chinese usually justify their attacks as a defensive response to actions that threaten their sovereignty or vital interests. But those vital interests are defined very broadly — e.g. Beijing’s claim to the entire South China Sea — and armed force is seen as a legitimate response to purely political, non-violent provocations.

The temptation to preempt would be particularly great in a crisis with the United States. If the Americans have fair warning, they can get their planes in the air and their ships out to sea, with their defensive systems turned on. However, a massive surprise attack by land-based ballistic missiles followed up by cruise missiles and airstrikes could cripple aircraft on the ground and ships in harbor, where they’re sitting ducks. Such a massive conventional strike is the primary purpose of China’s Rocket Force, formerly the Second Artillery, which was made an independent armed service in 2016. Commercial satellite imagery of Chinese missile test ranges near the Gobi Desert show they’ve fired test shots at mock-ups of airfields and life-sized outlines of ships, positioned in the same configuration as the US Navy piers in Yokosuka, Shugart and Gonzalez told the Center for a New American Security conference today.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Report: Japan Enhances Offensive Capabilities, Equips F-35s with Joint Strike Missiles

The Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) is making moves to enhance its return on investment in F-35 fighters by equipping the aircraft with Joint Strike Missiles designed by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence Systems, the South China Morning Post reported.

“Japan has never previously had anything like this,” defense analyst Lance Gatling of Nexial Research Inc. told the news outlet on Tuesday.

The F-35 can maintain its stealth profile while carrying the weapons, which allows pilots to soar “much closer to targets” when they launch the missiles, Gatling added.

As a self-defense outfit, the JSDF has been reluctant to procure offensive weapons capability, but Tokyo’s posture is shifting as potential regional threats loom on the Korean Peninsula and in the South and East China Seas. Upgrading strike capabilities for the F-35 is a natural decision for policymakers in light of such developments, Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported on June 27.

News Report: North Korean, Russian, Chinese Missile Tech Advances Raise Threat to US

The development of ballistic and cruise missile technology around the world has raised the potential threat level faced by Washington, even if the projectiles don’t carry nuclear warheads, according to a new US Defense Department report.

Missiles have seen “dramatic improvements” in location targeting, which “allows them to be used effectively with conventional warheads,” according to a National Air and Space Intelligence Center assessment shared with Bloomberg News prior to its public release. The aerial weapons are widely viewed internationally as “cost-effective weapons and symbols of national power,” the report said.

The US and its allies have repeatedly called on North Korea to halt its ballistic missile research and development, but Pyongyang has rejected any suggestions of this sort. A recent op-ed circulated through the North Korean media indicating that, regardless of convening diplomats of North and South Korea, Pyongyang would push forward on its quest to achieve intercontinental ballistic missile capability, Sputnik reported on Sunday.

News Story: USFK adds long-range air-to-ground missiles to its munitions - sources

AGM-158 JASSM (Image: Wiki Commons)

SEOUL, June 26 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) has more than 10 long-range, precision-guided missiles capable of hitting major facilities in Pyongyang even when fired south of the inter-Korean border, multiple defense sources in Seoul said Monday.

The USFK recently deployed the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, at Kunsan Air Base, some 180 kilometers south of Seoul, for use by F-16 fighter jets, they said.

Lockheed Martin's JASSM with a range of over 300 kilometers is designed to engage high-value fixed targets, equipped with a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Report: 'Failure of US Policy' - Pyongyang Taunts Washington With Promise of ICBM Launch

Pyongyang suggested Saturday that Washington can expect a North Korean ICBM test missile launch in the not-too-distant future.

On Saturday, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), in an editorial published in the state-owned newspaper Rodong Sinmun, suggested that the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch by the country was "not too far away," according to Yonhap.

"The series of recent strategic weapons tests show that we are not too far away from test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile," according to a Rodong Sinmun editorial, cited by Yonhap.

In an annual January 1 address, DPRK leader Kim Jong-un claimed that Pyongyang would accelerate its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development as a means of self-defense.

Following Pyongyang's Saturday ICBM announcement, all eyes are now upon the increasingly isolated nation as they strive to reach their stated goal of having the ability to strike the US mainland with an atom bomb.

News Report: 'Swordplay' Between China, N Korea is Not What US and Allies Perceive It to Be

At a conference on disarmament in Geneva, the DPRK accused China and the US of displaying "arbitrariness" and "self-will" in the UN. Sputnik spoke with Russian experts, Konstantin Asmolov and Alexander Voronstov about the future of relations between the DPRK and China.

The North Korean representative rejected, as he put it, "deliberately concocted" sanctions that were initiated by China and the United States.

Pyongyang, for the first time, chose an international platform for public criticism of Beijing. Previously, similar sharp assessments were voiced only through the DPRK’s state TV channel. 

The strongest anti-Chinese rhetoric took place on May 4. Back then the negative reaction was caused by the publication of the central Chinese newspaper stating, "North Korean nuclear forces pose a threat to China's national interests." 

North Korea’s agency KCNA expressed irritation at China, which was caused by the Chinese newspaper’s article, in which it "laid the blame on Pyongyang for the deterioration of relations between the two neighboring states." 

News Report: White House Official Confirms Discussions on S. Korean Missile Defense

A White House official has confirmed to VOA that President Donald Trump, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense discussed South Korea's suspension of deployment of a U.S. anti-ballistic-missile defense system in South Korea.

South Korea announced Wednesday that it would delay the installation of the remaining components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system while it was assessing the system's environmental impact.

The official said U.S. officials had been "in close contact with our ally South Korea" on the matter. The official added that the South Korean government had assured the U.S. that it would not revert from its previous commitments regarding the missile defense system, and that the United States had given South Korea the same assurances.

The future of the program has been uncertain since South Korea announced the suspension.

News Report: North Korea Has Successful 'Ground-to-sea Cruise Rocket' Launch

A presumed Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Launcher see at the North
Korean 2017 Military Parade

North Korea successfully tested a new "ground-to-sea cruise rocket" that is capable of striking enemy battleships staging a military attack, the country's KCNA news agency said Friday.

Pyongyang launched several land-to-sea missiles early Thursday, under the supervision of leader Kim Jong Un, KCNA said.

The missiles "accurately detected and hit the floating targets on the East Sea of Korea (Sea of Japan)," it reported.

The missile test was North Korea's fourth in the span of a month, and comes after the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions on Kim's government last week.

The three previous tests were of ballistic missiles, with North Korea appearing determined to develop a missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon and reaching the U.S. mainland.

News Story: U.S. urges DPRK to refrain from "provocative" actions following latest missile tests

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. on Thursday called on Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to refrain from "provocative" actions after Pyongyang test-fired multiple ground-to-ship cruise missiles.

"We continue to call on them to stop those destabilizing activities," said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert. "That only serves to undermine the situation in the Korean Peninsula."

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Seoul trapped between a rock and a THAAD place; NK tests cruise missile

By Park Chan-Kyong

Installing a controversial US missile defence system in South Korea was never going to be easy but, caught between Beijing's opposition and American insistence, the country's new president has a strategy: delay.

Seoul suspended deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system this week following a furious campaign of economic sanctions and diplomatic protests by Beijing against the US missile shield, dealing a blow to Washington's regional security policy.

Officially, the delay is to allow for a new, comprehensive environmental impact assessment, but analysts say the move is a strategic delay by new President Moon Jae-In to dodge the tricky diplomatic situation he inherited.

"South Korea is caught between China and the United States... it can't turn its back on either China, its largest trading partner, or the United States, its key ally," Chonnam National University political science professor Yoon Sung-Suk told AFP.

The new government is undertaking a delicate balancing act, saying the two THAAD launchers already in place are safe, but suspending further deployment until completion of the probe -- ordered after an allegedly botched roll out of the missile shield by the previous government.

"Moon is playing for time, trying to avoid irritating Washington but find a way to wiggle out of the current diplomatic impasse," Yoon added, saying he could be hoping that by the time the probe is finished the security landscape will have changed.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Story: Japan adds more North Koreans to blacklist over weapons program

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan has added 12 North Korean individuals and four entities to its blacklist over the country's weapons program in line with a resolution adopted last week by the U.N. Security Council, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday.

The resolution, the first of its kind since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, subjects all of them to travel bans and asset freezes.

"We will steadily implement the resolution to ensure its effectiveness and will continue to work closely with other related countries," Kishida told a press conference.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: LDP gives gov't plan to protect public from N. Korea missiles

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Liberal Democratic Party gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a proposal Thursday to change the way the government protects Japanese nationals -- both those at home and those living in South Korea -- in the event of ballistic missile launches by North Korea.

The LDP plan calls on the government to work more closely with airlines and shipping companies to plan for a potential evacuation of Japanese nationals living in or visiting South Korea.

It also calls for new shelters to be built in Japan, and to carry out evacuation drills making use of underground facilities in densely populated areas.

The plan also proposes that the government set up a television advertising campaign to let the public know what to do in the event of the launch of a missile that could threaten Japanese territory.

Abe, who is also the ruling party's president, said the government will handle the proposal "thoroughly."

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Report: South Korean Opposition Urges Faster THAAD Deployment as North Launches Missiles

South Korea’s opposition parties urged the government on Thursday to proceed with the installation of a US missile shield after it was put on hold over environmental impact, local media said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — This comes after North Korea launched a salvo of short-range cruise missiles into the Sea of Japan, in what was the fourth missile test in a month.

"The government is charging at the THAAD deployment and the Korea-U.S. alliance while taking no measures whatsoever against North Korea's missile launches," Chung Woo-taik, acting chief of the Liberty Korea Party, was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

Kim Se-yeon, head of the conservative Bareun Party, said building a defense system as early as possible was a common-sense approach to North Korea’s nuclear ambition.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is a highly controversial weapon, which Koreans fear might make the area of its deployment a target for the North. The president’s office suspended the installation of four launchers this week to conduct a comprehensive study.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Report: North Korea Tests Missiles After South Suspends Anti-Missile System

Brian Padden

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea test fired another missile, just one day after South Korea suspended the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.

The early morning launch occurred Thursday from the coastal city of Wonsan.

“Multiple projectiles that appear to be short-range, land-to-ship cruise missiles” were fired and flew about 200 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan or East Sea as it is called in Korea, according to South Korea’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Targeting enemy vessels

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month ordered his military to develop the missile capability to precisely target enemy vessels at sea, according to North Korean state media.

During the first week of June, two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, conducted military exercises in international waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.