The US government and Japan appear to have reached agreement to deploy Patriot missile systems to Japan in response to North Korea's threat to launch a long range missile.
TOKYO, June 27 — The Pentagon is reportedly speeding up plans to deploy advanced Patriot interceptor missiles on U.S. bases in Japan for the first time, a countermeasure seen as a response to the increasing threat of North Korean missiles.
In a May accord signed in Washington, the United States and Japan agreed in principle to put the interceptor system known as PAC-3 on U.S. bases here. But Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported that the Pentagon made a proposal this month to deploy the system in Okinawa by year's end amid concerns that Pyongyang may be preparing to test-fire a long-range Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.
Frankly, this seems a sensible plan since North Korea has not followed normally accepted protocols for missile launches (notification of flight plan, missile payload, etc.). It's acknowledging the threat without aggressive escalation. Defensive preparations are prudent.
With all the technological and scientific power they have why are Japanese unable to defend themselves?
Part of the problem is that the Japanese constitution is written such that the military is only for defense – doesn’t seem a big deal, but if you think about it, the Patriot missile system was developed as an offensive weapon. (The Japanese military cannot be used as a warfighting outfit except on Japanese territory – no more Imperialism.) Originally, the Patriot was designed for THAAD uses (theater high-altitude area defense, I think.) It was transitioned to missile defense during the Gulf War (and it didn’t work as well as they claimed, either.) The newer Patriots are much better at missile defense, but only for area defense. We couldn’t use them to shoot down missiles from NK, but the Japanese could.
Trust me, though, the Japanese have some cutting-edge weapons-systems in development, and they share the technology with us, but they can’t spend more than a certain amount on development, and they can’t plan on using the weapons for anything other than defending their homeland.