Amid growing missile threats from North Korea, American missile defenses based in Alaska, California, and Guam, as well as on Navy ships, are capable of knocking out North Korean nuclear missiles, according to military leaders and experts.
Missile Defense Agency Director Air Force Lt. General Samuel Greaves said Wednesday he is confident current defenses would be effective BY: Bill Gertz | Washington Free Beacon
against Pyongyang’s missiles.
“Yes, we believe that the currently deployed ballistic missile defense system can meet today’s threat, and we’ve demonstrated that capability through testing,” Greaves told a conference in Alabama.
Contrary to critics who say ground-based interceptors and naval anti-missile systems are unreliable, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, a former MDA director, says the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) provides the best protection from a long-range North Korean strike.
Yet other shorter-range defenses such as the land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, and the Navy’s ship-based Aegis SM-3 missiles can knock out medium and intermediate-range North Korean missiles, and if given enough satellite warning could attack North Korea’s ICBM warheads, he said.
“Any interceptor can intercept any missile, given the right parameters,” Obering said in an interview.
“I have high confidence that if we were attacked by North Korea we would be able to defend ourselves.”
President Trump has declared North Korea will not be allowed to develop a nuclear missile capable of striking the United States. On Tuesday he warned that continued North Korean threats against the United States would result in “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
North Korea responded by announcing that an attack on the American Pacific island of Guam is being considered.
On Wednesday, the official KCNA news agency dismissed Trump’s warning as a “load of nonsense.”
“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him,” the state media organ said.
The heated rhetoric prompted … >>> Read More