The Defense Department has deployed a new radar designed to monitor potential North Korean long-range-missile launches in the coming months, CNN reported Thursday.
Barbara Starr writes the sea-based X-band radar was launched in response to North Korean statements of readiness to test-launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.
North Korea made an announcement in January that it has developed the capacity to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time and location that leader Kim Jong-Un dictates and its government leaders noted that the country’s arms development efforts were commenced in response to U.S. policies.
Defense officials told CNN that additional surveillance assets will be used to monitor activity on the Korean Peninsula and noted that U.S. missile defense systems might not shoot down launched North Korean ballistic missiles.
“It may be more to our advantage to, first of all, save our interceptor inventory, and, second, to gather intelligence from the flight rather than do that [shoot it down] when it’s not threatening,” said outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
