THOSE NORTH KOREAN MISSILES – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:   This article articulates, with excellent reporting, something that is being whispered about regularly:  Do the United States, Japan, and Korea actually have the ability to shoot down North Korean missiles, or are our abilities far less than Americans think?  From the Australian source, news.com.au: 

The Patriot and Standard interceptor missiles currently stationed in and around Japan are advanced. But they’re not the latest technology.

New SM-3 Block IIA Standard missiles are being deployed by the United States. These are supposed to fly higher, faster - and with greater accuracy.

But they’ve also failed several tests.

This is not uncommon for missile interceptors.

Generally tests are conducted under optimal conditions. Launch times, directions and trajectories are often known in advance.

Yet, disturbingly frequently, the tests still fail.

Real-world operational conditions will likely reduce their success rate even further.

There are a few apparent aces up the West’s sleeve.

A new version of the Standard Missile, the SM-6, was test fired from a destroyer on August 30 - successfully downing a medium range ballistic missile in its final seconds of flight in its first attempt.

Then there’s highly-publicised successor to the Patriot air defence system - the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system (THAAD). This has been hyped as having a “perfect record on launches” with a claimed track record of 14 kills out of 14 targets so far.

It has also been deployed to Guam and South Korea.

But even this has not been extensively tested against ballistic missiles.

One timely test, however, did prove promising. In July a THAAD system in Alaska successfully downed a mid-range projectile.

But it is only able to intercept intermediate (such as the HS-12) and short range missiles.

The bad news is, in August, North Korea successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile. This appears to be outside THAAD’s scope.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  It is speculative, of course, as the writer might not know all he needs to know about our latest advances.  But it is very cautionary.

Just what are our capabilities?  Are we up to date, or behind the times?  If a missile is fired at Guam, and we launch a number of interceptor missiles, and they fail, what happens to American deterrence and American prestige? 

This is important.

September 21,  2017