THAAD Will Not Protect South Korea (Comment 2 of 9)

THAAD makes the use of NK weapons less certain of success, therefore, it acts as a deterrent. Whose interest does it serve to remove THAAD? China and North Korea. So when you argue to remove a deterrent, keep in mind that you are arguing in favour of those needing to be deterred. Do any South Koreans want to be ruled by the system used in the North? This seems doubtful. So the logic compels us to ask why some South Koreans would want to argue in favour of North Korea’s having weapons against which the South has no credible deterrent threat.

As to the technical components of the THAAD system, I believe the author of the article has cherry-picked “experts” to make it sound useless and fallible. In reality, it is likely to be as useful and reliable as any other weapons system, which is to say, it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. No system will protect you 100%, and in an actual war scenario, there will be horrible casualties. But the North knows very well that it cannot win a war, so it prefers to develop its weapons as the major component in a political system of threat and blackmail. To counter that threat, THAAD is a reasonably good system, because it raises the potential costs to the aggressor and makes its benefits uncertain.

Something is always better than nothing, and the chances are that THAAD will work as advertised most of the time. This is why both China and NK don’t want the South to deploy it, not because they really care about SK. The main point is this: if THAAD is not to be used, you can’t just argue against it. You have to show what the real alternatives are, and the article above signally fails to provide any reasonable or credible alternatives to its use.

A lot of different lines of argument pursued here, but all of them point to the idea that South Korea is better off without THAAD. But how can that be the case? North Korea is developing a nuclear strike capability. Do they plan to use it? Probably not actively. But that isn’t the point: the point is to be able to blackmail South Korean governments into following the policy line set down by the North. Will that help China? Of course it will; and China can also put pressure on the North to try blackmailing SK governments into doing their will as well.

The specifications for THAAD are not so well known that this article can be trusted, THAAD is intended as the intermediate interceptor with the Patriot handling the closer launched missiles. The Patriot I believe is capable against low flying missiles as well. THAAD is capable at higher elevations and a success is only achieved with a direct hit on the warhead. The THAAD expects the target to be falling ballistically in a gravity field to intercept the target. This would set a requirement for a certain distance to be established between the enemy launch location and the THAAD installation. I would assume the user will comply with this distance separation so it should not be a problem for the THAAD and its relative long range.

The successes described were all over the envelope for which the THAAD is designed,(meaning that the idea that the tests were “scripted for success” is false) the failures in the early part of the program were all with a preliminary design and most were due to manufacturing errors on the part of the subsystem manufacturers. The current design solved the workmanship problems at the same time the design was simplified and the ground testing was improved. I would not believe the article, as I have actual experience that tells me the system will perform as designed.

There is always a political not in my backyard attitude when a military system is located near a village. The fact is that the THAAD installation could be a target for sabotage in order to make the system unusable. I do not believe we are planning on THAAD to be enough of a deterrent to give S Korea a first strike capability but I would imagine the US has this capability if it became part of our strategy. I do not believe it is.

On 6 March 2017, two THAAD launcher trucks arrived by air transport at Osan Air Base South Korea for a deployment. Earlier that day, North Korea had launched 4 missiles. A Reuters article stated that with the THAAD defense system, a North Korean missile barrage would still pose a threat to South Korea, while an article in the International Journal of Space Politics & Policy said that South Korean forces already possess Patriot systems for point defense and Aegis destroyers capable of stopping ballistic missiles that may come from the north.] On 16 March 2017, a THAAD radar arrived in South Korea. The THAAD system is kept at Osan Air Base until the site where the system is due to be deployed is prepared, with an expected ready date of June 2017.

The success of THAAD since the contract issued Lockhead-Martin in 1992 is based upon initial tests were unsuccessful and it wasn’t until later that they improved their hit percentage.

The major concern in the area is that China is feeling threatened, and with good reason. They have not made it a secret that they have nuclear vehicles on the matt ready to launch with multiple warheads since the late 90’s and the ultimate loss of the presidency with Bush. Further concern for China is the ability of the new radar system

The radar used with a THAAD battery is the X-band AN/TPY-2. The TPY-2 radar has two configurations. It can be configured as Terminal Mode (TM) radar, in which it operates as the fire control radar for a THAAD battery. Alternatively, it can be set up as a Forward-Based Mode (FBM) radar, in which it relays tracking and discrimination data to a remote missile defense system, such as the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) system. If THAAD is finally deployed to South Korea, The United States has stated that its TPY-2 radar would be in the shorter-range TM configuration. Since in the TM mode, the radar reportedly only has a range of 600 km, supporters of the THAAD deployment argue that while its range is adequate to cover N. Korea, it cannot look deeply into China. But it sure can be set up to. (And may be.)

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But that isn’t the point: the point is to be able to blackmail South Korean governments into following the policy line set down by the North.

That is precisely the point. Nobody can guarantee that they won't use one. Nukes are effective means of blackmail.

Besides, in some of recent N. Korean missile test, they launched a missile which reached a very high altitude but traveled a short distance. If there is no THAAD, N. Koreans can just do that. They launch one to reach very high altitude beyond the reach of existing missile defense system and heading down to a target.

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