A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel announced yesterday that the Pentagon would expand the number of ground-based, anti-ballistic missile interceptors deployed in the Asia Pacific region by nearly 50 percent by 2017. An additional 14 interceptors would be based at Fort Greely in Alaska on top of 26 already in place. Another three are already stationed in California.
Hagel seized on North Korea’s nuclear test last month and its satellite launch in December as the pretext for the expansion of US anti-ballistic missile systems. “North Korea, in particular, has recently made advances in its capabilities and has engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations,” he said.
These comments are completely cynical. The Obama administration is exploiting North Korea’s limited nuclear and missile capability to justify the build-up of sophisticated anti-missile systems throughout the Asia Pacific region that are aimed primarily at countering China’s nuclear arsenal.
In response to additional UN Security Council sanctions earlier this month, the North Korean regime declared that it had the right to defend itself, including through “a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor.” The Obama administration, however, simply dismissed the threat. Neither Hagel nor any Pentagon official has suggested that Pyongyang actually has the ability to carry out such an attack on Washington.
Moreover, Pentagon plans to expand the number of interceptors predate both the North Korean missile launch and nuclear test. A senior American defence official told the Washington Post that the expansion “had been in the works for about six months.” In other words, North Korea had simply supplied a convenient excuse for the announcement.
Hagel also announced that the US would deploy an additional early warning system to Japan—a sophisticated X-band radar capable of tracking ballistic missiles. The US already has one such installation in northern Japan and is planning the second in the south of the country.
The Pentagon leaked details of its anti-ballistic missile plans to the Wall Street Journal last August (see: “US to expand anti-missile systems in Asia”). According to that report, the US is also seeking to build a third X-band radar installation in South East Asia, possibly in the Philippines. Each additional early warning system greatly enhances the US military’s ability to track the trajectory of ballistic missiles and thus to destroy them with interceptors.
The US is developing and building these anti-ballistic missile systems in close collaboration with its major allies in Asia, especially Japan. In addition to long-range, land-based interceptors in North America, the US and Japan have ship-based anti-missile systems and are seeking to enhance their capacities.
The US navy recently boosted the number of its Arleigh Burke -class guided missile destroyers in waters off the Korean Peninsula, as part of joint exercises with South Korea. The US military also has Patriot missile batteries in South Korea.
To suggest that the US is spending tens of billions of dollars on anti-ballistic missile defences to counter the threat from North Korea—and, in the case of the missile defences it is building in Europe, to counter the threat from Iran—is absurd. These systems are primarily aimed at China and Russia, which do have the capability to strike the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal last August, an unnamed senior American official acknowledged that any anti-ballistic missile system aimed at North Korea is also aimed at China, by virtue of geography. “Physics is physics,” he said. “You’re either blocking North Korea and China, or you’re not blocking either of them.”
More here:http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-threatens-china-russia-and-north-korea-us-to-boost-anti-ballistic-missile-systems-in-asia-pacific/5327071