Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

www.bangkokpost.com
October 7, 2012

South Korea plans to announce a new deal with the United States aimed at extending the range of its ballistic missiles to cover the whole of North Korea, a report said Saturday. …

The official declined to discuss details but a diplomatic source told Yonhap the agreement would more than double the range of Seoul’s ballistic missiles to 800 kilometres (500 miles), from the current limit of 300 km.

It would mean the whole of North Korea would be within reach but the missiles’ maximum payload would reportedly stay at 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds).

The existing deal with Washington, which allows Seoul limited access to US missile technology, is up for renewal at the end of the year.

All of South Korea is within striking distance of North Korean missiles and President Lee Myung-Bak said in March that Seoul needed a “realistic adjustment” of its missile capabilities. …

Read in full: www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/315807/s-korea-set-to-announce-us-missile-deal-report

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Space News
By Titus Ledbetter III
September 14, 2012

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) hopes to resume flight testing late this year of the nation’s primary missile shield after a two-year hiatus following consecutive failures in early and late 2010.

The upcoming flight test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is unusual in that it will not involve an attempt to intercept a target missile. Rather, it is intended to validate fixes to a key interceptor component cited in the most recent test failure, in December 2010.

The component, the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) Capability Enhancement 2, is the business end of the missile shield, designed to home in on its target and destroy it via direct impact. It is an upgraded version of the EKV that tops the 20 U.S. missile interceptors deployed today at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Fort Greely, Alaska.

The upcoming nonintercept test had been scheduled for this past spring but was postponed because of continuing technical concerns with the upgraded EKV …

Read on: www.spacenews.com/military/120914-problematic-interceptor-missile-to-resume-in-flight-testing.html

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The Vancouver Sun
By Ian MacLeod, Postmedia News
September 13, 2012

System needed to protect the northeast from Iranian threats, experts say

The United States is being urged to establish a major missile interceptor site two hours from Ottawa in upstate New York or in Maine to defend itself and Canada against potential future strikes from Iran.

The proposed site, “would protect the eastern United States and Canada, particularly against Iranian ICBM threats should they emerge,” says a blue-chip panel report delivered to Congress this week.

The U.S. has 30 long-range, ground-based interceptor missiles deployed at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to repel a limited nuclear or conventional missile strikes from North Korea. Smaller ship-based systems are aboard the U.S. navy’s Pacific and Atlantic fleets.

Now, future concerns about Iran are shifting continental defence concerns eastward.

“A third (ground) site would be added in the northeastern United States, e.g. Fort Drum, New York, or in northern Maine, to protect the eastern United States and Canada against any potential threats that are limited in nature,” says the report by an influential National Research Council panel.

It pinpoints Rome, N.Y., near Syracuse, and Caribou, in northern Maine, near the New Brunswick border, as the other potential sites …

Read on: www.vancouversun.com/news/urged+build+interceptor+site/7235449/story.html

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news24online.com
August 24, 2012

The United States is in discussions with close ally Japan about expanding a missile defence system in Asia, the top US general said.

Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was yesterday commenting on a Wall Street Journal report that the US is discussing positioning an early warning radar in southern Japan, supplementing one already in place in the country’s north, to contain threats from North Korea and to counter China’s military.

The State Department, however, said the missile defense system is not directed against China. Dempsey said no decisions have been reached on expanding the radar.

“But it’s certainly a topic of conversation because missile defense is important to both of our nations,” Dempsey told reporters at the start of a meeting with his visiting Japanese counterpart, Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki, at the Pentagon. Japan has worked closely with the US for several years on missile defense, and has both land- and sea-based missile launchers.

North Korea’s ballistic missiles are considered a threat to security in the Asia-Pacific region because of the risk of conflict erupting on the divided and heavily militarised Korean peninsula, and because of the secretive North’s nuclear weapons program. …

Read on: www.news24online.com/us-missile-defense-for-nkorea-threat-not-china_LatestNews24_1241.aspx

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Reuters
By Alex Dobuzinskis
August 15, 2012

The U.S. military conducted an unmanned test flight of its hypersonic Waverider aircraft, designed to move at six times the speed of sound using technology that bridges the gap between planes and rocketships, a military official said.

A B-52 bomber launched the remotely monitored, nearly wingless experimental aircraft, officially known as the X-51A, between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. (1700 and 1800 GMT) on Tuesday, John Haire, a spokesman for the 412th test wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, said in a statement. Results of the brief test flight will be released on Wednesday, he said.

The plan had been to conduct the test flight over the Pacific Ocean after a staging at Edwards, said Deborah VanNierop, a spokeswoman for Boeing Co, which was involved in constructing the craft, said in a statement.

The Waverider is designed to reach speeds of Mach 6 or above, fast enough to zoom from New York to London in less than an hour. But rather than commercial air travel, the military has its eye on a more readily achievable application – using it to develop high-speed cruise missiles. …

Read on: www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/us-usa-hypersonic-flight-idUSBRE87E0J420120815

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RIA Novosti
August 11, 2012

Poland wants to cooperate with France and Germany on the establishment of its own missile defense system, Polish Press Agency reported on Saturday, quoting Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak as saying.

“We want it [creation of the missile defense system] to happen in cooperation with France, Germany and other our allies. NATO welcomes the initiatives of the countries to build up their joint defense capabilities. This is so-called smart defense,” Siemoniak told the agency.

The minister estimated the planned Polish missile defense system at $3-6 billion.

In early August, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said that Warsaw needed s its own missile defense shield which would be a part of the NATO missile defense system, along with the U.S. elements of the European Missile Defense that will be deployed on the Polish territory by 2018.

The United States scrapped plans in September, 2010 for an anti-ballistic-missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Moscow welcomed the move, and Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev said later that Russia would drop plans to deploy Iskander-M tactical missiles in its Kaliningrad Region, which borders NATO members, Poland and Lithuania.

Last year, however, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Washington’s plans to deploy the U.S. new-generation ballistic missile defense interceptor site in Poland by 2018.

http://en.ria.ru/world/20120811/175146778.html

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The Jewish Daily Forward
By Mel Levine
July 15, 2012

President Made Good on Missile Defense Assurance

“I can assure you, if somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” This was the vow made by then-senator Barack Obama in Sderot in 2008, after the besieged Israeli city had been hit by more than 2,000 rockets,

During his first term as president, Barack Obama has made good on this assurance. Most recently, on May 17, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the United States would immediately provide Israel with $70 million for the purchase of additional rocket defense batteries. This aid comes after the Obama administration had already given Israel $205 million in 2011, in addition to the $3 billion Israel receives in annual foreign aid.

Since 2009, in fact, the United States has committed more than $1 billion to helping Israel develop and deploy a comprehensive missile defense system. Designed to counter not only rocket fire from Gaza and southern Lebanon but also the missiles in Iran’s arsenals, it has already proven itself in battle. The missile defense system is absolutely vital to Israel’s long-term security, and it’s an example of how, since President Obama took office, America’s commitment to the Jewish state’s defenses has grown where it counts the most.

American funding for David’s Sling, Israel’s missile-defense system, more than doubled over the last four years — from $52 million during the last year of President George W. Bush’s administration to $110.5 million this year. Funding for the advanced system, developed to defend against the ballistic- and cruise-missile threat from Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, has increased every year since President Obama took office in 2009. The system’s interceptor missile, the Stunner, has already been successfully tested, and the first operational David’s Sling battery is scheduled to be deployed in early 2013. …

Read on: http://forward.com/articles/159247/obamas-promise-kept-to-israel/

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DefenseWorld.net
July 10, 2012

Raytheon announced on Monday that it has won a $636 million contract awarded by Boeing to continue work on the key interceptor for the U.S. ground-based missile defense system.

Under the terms of the contract, which extends until 2018, Raytheon will provide EKV development Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, fielding, testing, system engineering, integration, configuration management, equipment manufacturing, operation and sustainment.

After two failed missile defense tests in 2010, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency last year halted deliveries of the advanced warhead. An investigation looking into the failures found that the problem came from a design flaw on the warhead’s advanced guidance system that could only be detected in outer space.

Designed to destroy incoming ballistic missile threats by colliding with them, a concept sometimes described as “hit to kill”, the EKV represents the centerpiece for the Missile Defense Agency’s GMD as the intercept component of the Ground Based Interceptor, also known as GBI, which is designed to engage high-speed ballistic missile warheads in space. …

www.defenseworld.net/go/defensenews.jsp?id=7159

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The Korea Herald
May 13, 2012

A U.S. congressional committee is pressuring the Obama administration to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

The House Armed Services Committee, dominated by Republicans, approved an amendment to the fiscal 2013 national defense authorization bill Thursday that calls for the re-introduction of the sensitive weapons to South Korea, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

It also would require Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to submit a report on the feasibility and logistics of redeploying nuclear weapons to South Korea, added the magazine.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who reportedly sponsored the amendment, and his staff were not available to confirm the report.

“We in the last many years have appealed to China to help us negotiate with North Korea to bring them in line in the quest for peace in the world… China has now embarked on selling nuclear components to North Korea,” Franks was quoted as saying in the committee’s markup.

The North has carried out two underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, and is suspected to be preparing for a third.

Some South Korean conservatives have also raised the issue of redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea to counter the North’s missile and nuclear threats. …

Read on: www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120513000248

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RT.com
May 10, 2012

As US officials reopen the debate on placing elements of the country’s global missile defense system in space, one Russian analyst says it would always be possible to breach such out-of-this-world defenses.

­The United States cannot build an absolutely invulnerable missile defense system even if it deploys some of its elements in outer space, says Yury Zaitsev, an academic advisor of the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.

“Even a brief review of possible measures to neutralize such a comprehensive missile defense system shows that it is absolutely unnecessary to fully destroy it,” Zaitsev said, commenting on American plans to build a global missile defense system. “It is enough to make a breach in [the missile defense system] by affecting its most vulnerable elements, [thereby] delivering a retaliatory strike powerful enough to be unacceptable to an aggressor.”

“These are missile detection, global positioning, communications, control and other systems,” he added.

US military officials have once again introduced the idea of deploying interceptor missiles in outer space because, according to the leading Russian academic, they understand that any ground-based missile defense system will be unable – even in the distant future – of protecting the country from ballistic missiles, especially those armed with multiple warheads.

Read on: http://rt.com/politics/us-missile-defense-space-russia-923/

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