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US and South Korea agree THAAD missile defence deployment

The US and South Korea have agreed to deploy a controversial missile defence system, in the wake of intensifying threats from North Korea.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system will be deployed solely to counter the threat from Pyongyang, a statement said.

It is unclear exactly where it will be sited and who will have final control.
China, which has consistently opposed the plan, lodged a protest with the US and South Korean envoys.

China's foreign ministry said that the THAAD system will harm peace and stability in the region, despite its ability to detect and shoot down North Korean missiles.

"China expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute objection to this", it said in a statement on its website.

The BBC's Korea Correspondent Stephen Evans says that Beijing fears the system's radars would be able to see far into its territory. China, the North's closest ally, supported the most recent UN sanctions after North Korean nuclear and missile tests.

Discussions between the two countries began in February after North Korea fired a long-range missile.

"South Korea and the US have made the joint decision to deploy the THAAD system as part of a defensive action to guarantee the security of the Republic of Korea," South Korea's Defence Ministry said on Friday.

It will be deployed "as soon as possible."

THAAD is "critical" to the US' defensive strategy, Lt. Gen Thomas S. Vandal of the US Eighth Army in South Korea told AP. He added that the North's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction required that the allies made sure that they could defend themselves.

The announcement comes after North Korea denounced US sanctions on Kim Jong-un, calling it an "open declaration of war", after the leader was accused of human rights abuses.
The US had put sanctions onto the leader for the first time, calling him directly responsible for violations in his country.

Pyongyang has warned that it will close down all diplomatic channels with the US unless the blacklisting is revoked, reported news agency Yonhap.

The measures freeze any property the individuals have in the US and prevent US citizens doing business with them.

"Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour, and torture," the Treasury statement said.

It estimates that between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners are being held in North Korean prison camps where torture, sexual assault and executions are routine.

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The Pentagon is seeking “consideration” from Boeing as a result of the KC-46A Pegasus tanker missing a major program benchmark, even as the company begins flight tests on its redesigned refueling system.

In May, the Air Force announced Boeing would miss a deadline to have 18 tankers ready to go by August of 2017. Instead, those 18 aircraft will be ready come January 2018, barring any further delays. Because the development contract for the tanker caps the Air Force's liability at $4.9 billion, with the company having to absorb the rest, there have been no cost overruns for the service directly; the company has already been hit with $1.5 billion in cost overruns.

However, there are potential costs for the Air Force due to delays in the KC-46. Specifically, the service may have to fly the KC-135 fleet for longer. That raises the question of whether Boeing would be asked to help cover some of those down-the-line costs for the service.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, said the tanker program office is currently running an analysis of the costs for the service that can occur due to the delay.

“There is no penalty specialized in the contract for a schedule slip,” Kendall said. “Any delay just increases that number. I think Boeing is highly motivated to get this done.

“That said, the government is losing some of the value that we have contracted for, so we are entitled to some consideration for that. The program office has several ideas for how we might do that, and they’re talking to Boeing.”

For its part, Boeing is focusing less on potential punitive measures and more on the technical aspects of fixing the KC-46 boom, which has been the source of the recent delay.

Boeing defense head Leann Caret told reporters Sunday that the company began flying the redesigned boom in the last week. The design features a bypass, roughly the size of a paperback book, which helps control the fuel flow while refueling heavier aircraft such as the C-17.

Caret reported “positive” results from early tests, and Kendall said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the bypass would fix the boom issues for the tanker.

“It has some indications very recently over the past weekend that they’re having some initial success from the hardware and software fix, but it’s too early to have a definitive answer to that,” Kendall said.

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Raytheon and the US Air Force have started flight testing of the Small Diameter Bomb II’s coordinated attack capability, which uses GPS and anti-jamming to attack static targets from at least 40 miles away.

Recent flight tests also employed the SDB II’s normal attack capability, which fires on fixed and moving targets using infrared imaging and millimetre-wave seeker modes, according to Raytheon.

“Most people would look at SDB II and say technologically, the most complicated subsystem to address from a design [and] development perspective is the tri-mode seeker,” Mike Jarrett, vice-president of air warfare systems for Raytheon said at the Farnborough air show on 11 July. “We have fully qualified that seeker and we’ve demonstrated it in multiple flight tests in all the modes of operation quite successfully.”

Raytheon has also corrected a cabling issue with SDB II, after the bomb failed to detonate in a live fire testing event last September. The programme is moving ahead and should achieve initial operational capability by 2018, Jarrett says.

“In a live fire test, you go through the forensic evidence, which the ordnance folks are very good in the development programme about retrieving hardware from a flight test,” Jarrett says. “[They] made a conclusion on the most likely cause and we’re moving on.”

Raytheon also completed design verification tests for its corrosive environment correction on the weapon. The company must still wait for a formal qualification, which will determine the lot 2 contract award. Raytheon expects to complete qualification within the third quarter of the calendar year, Jarrett says.

The SDB II will be fielded on the Lockheed Martin F-35's B and C variants, and weapon integration also will be completed on the US Air Force’s Boeing F-15E. The bomb could potentially later be fielded on the Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed AC-130, F-16, F-22 and F-35A, the Fairchild Republic A-10 and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' MQ-9.

The standoff-range weapon persists through bad weather, which Raytheon has touted as an advantage over laser guidance systems, which can be degraded by fog and other adverse conditions. The bomb is also designed to identify and prosecute mobile targets in a shorter time.

Schedule delays have plagued the SDB II, including a shift in the required assets available (RAA) schedule that pushed back initial operational capability. Raytheon’s RAA date moved from March 2018 to July 2018 to allow for the live fire failure investigation and give more time for additional developing testing, a March selected acquisition report from the Department of Defense.

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FORBIN said:

US and South Korea agree THAAD missile defence deployment

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Blackstone said:

I fear this is a strategic mistake, because making Beijing nervous about its second strike capability may result in unintended Chinese actions like building hundreds or even thousands more nukes.

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