Russia beefs up anti-missile defence on North Korean border

Monsters and Critics ^ | 7/13/2010 | Monsters and Critics

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Russia plans to install new anti-missile defence systems on its border with North Korea in the wake of the international controversy over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, the Itar-Tass news agency reported on Tuesday.

The army will station two modern systems of the S-400 type near the border, an employee of the Defence Ministry was quoted as saying.

He added that Russia is 'very concerned' about North Korean missile tests, noting that the test site is 'alarmingly close' to the Russian border.

South Korea has blamed North Korea for the sinking of its Cheonan corvette near the two countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea, which left 46 sailors dead.

An international investigation found that a North Korean torpedo was responsible for the blast that brought down the ship, but Pyongyang has denied any involvement.

[arrogantsob]

Sounds prudent.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[SorosOwnsObama]

Has Obama accused Medvedev of racism yet?

[arrogantsob]

Could be any time now.

[Greysard]

It’s worth noting that the true NK-Russia border is only about 12 miles long (and maybe another 12 miles can be counted that are behind a thin strip of Chinese territory.)

[Deagle]

Great! We beef up against high tech weapons when they can destroy major cities (along with thousands of people) with all of their low tech weapons (mortars, rockets, etc.). Sounds like something we would do though...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Their claim is that they are putting the missiles there to counter possible North Korean missile tests and prevent fragments from falling on Russian territory.

[Deagle]

Heh... That sounds reasonable to the normal Russian maybe...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Its a horsesh#it Russian response

[Deagle]

Yep...political, I’d suspect.

[ThunderSleeps]

Seems like a political move. Given the S-400's capabilities (similar to Patriot but with longer range) the border is not where you'd put the S-400 from a tactical point of view. Patriot, and apparently the S-400, are basically "terminal" defense systems. They engage incoming ballistic missiles endo-atmospheric, with a relatively limited range / engagement envelop. Given that, you put the defensive batteries near potential high-value targets in range of whatever you are defending against. (eg. Nodong's or Taepodongs coming out of NK). With something like a Patriot or S-400 you don't defend forward and try to set up a barrier. Any incoming missiles will probably be too high, maybe even exo-atmospheric, as they cross the border.

Then again, maybe the Russians are telling us the truth for a change - just to keep us on our toes. Given the less than stellar history of NK rocketry the Russians should be afraid of a test shot blowing up, breaking up, or simply going astray. As they say, their territory is close to a test site. So if large and potentially dangerous debris (spent stages or worse, live stages with propellant in them) were coming down towards Russian territory this would be a good system to try to break those up and/or detonate them before they hit the ground.