U.S. and South Korea Split Over Missile Defense

The Korean nuclear crisis continues to heat up this week, with Pyongyang launching a precision-guided ballistic missile and ominously threatening to send a “bigger gift package” to the United States. Even as such a grave threat looms, though, the political and defense establishments in South Korea and the U.S. seem unable to get on the same page.  Reuters: 

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has ordered a probe after the Defence Ministry failed to inform him that four more launchers for the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system had been brought into the country, his spokesman said on Tuesday. […]

“President Moon said it was very shocking” to hear the four additional launchers had been installed without being reported to the new government or to the public, presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan told a media briefing.

Was Moon being kept in the dark on the THAAD deployment? The Pentagon is  that is not the case, saying it has been fully transparent about the timetable for installing the controversial system. Still, Moon’s comments are likely to reinforce a narrative that was already getting some play in South Korea: that the U.S. is excluding Seoul from the decision-making process on North Korea, rushing THAAD into place over the public’s vociferous objections. And that impression of discord between allies will hardly help create a united front against the North’s saber-rattling.

Meanwhile, as Moon questions the THAAD system in South Korea, the U.S. is touting a successful test of its own missile defense systems at home. :

The U.S. military said on Tuesday it had staged a successful, first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile, as concerns mount over North Korea’s advancing missile and nuclear program.

“The intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target is an incredible accomplishment … a critical milestone for this program,” Vice Admiral Jim Syring, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said in a statement.

The successful U.S. test is indeed good news, but the larger context should not be overlooked. According to a March scoop by the New York Times, the ground-based interceptor system just tested is one that the Obama administration had previously deemed a failure, since such systems registered a 56% fail rate under ideal conditions. Perhaps the military has worked out the kinks to make such systems more effective, but one successful test cannot erase the lingering doubts about the program’s viability. And the fact that the Pentagon is trying to defend against North Korean ICBMs is a reminder of how dire the situation has become.

Ultimately, any resolution of the North Korean crisis will depend less on missile defense breakthroughs than on the ability of Seoul and Washington to establish an effective working relationship. But so far, their early track record leaves much to be desired.