Japan might accelerate about US$1 billion of planned spending to upgrade its ballistic missile defenses in the wake of rocket tests suggesting North Korea is close to fielding a more potent medium-range missile, three government sources told reporters.
The outlays, currently in a budget request for the year starting in April next year, includes money to assess a new missile defense layer — either Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system or Aegis Ashore, a land-based version of the ballistic missile defense system used by vessels in the Sea of Japan.
It also covers money to improve the range and accuracy of MIM-104F PAC-3 Patriot missile batteries, said the sources familiar with the proposal, who asked not to be identified, because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
However, any rollout of THAAD or Aegis Ashore could still take years, the sources added.
Accelerated spending on Patriot missile batteries is also unlikely to deliver upgrades much quicker because of the limited capacity of the companies involved — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Raytheon — to speed up already tight production schedules.
“It nonetheless has symbolic value,” one of the sources said.
As much as ￥300 billion (US$2.9 billion) of defense funding is to be included in a third supplementary budget, the Sankei Shimbum daily reported earlier.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has yet to say whether it will ask lawmakers to approve additional outlays before deliberations begin on next year’s budget.
Officials at the Japanese Ministry of Defense were not immediately available to comment.
Pyongyang’s apparent technological progress on missiles has been faster than anticipated, exposing Japan to a heightened threat, a senior Japanese military commander told reporters earlier this month.
Tokyo and Pyongyang have been locked in a two-decade-long arms race after North Korea fired a missile over Japan in 1998.
North Korea has test fired at least 21 ballistic missiles and conducted two nuclear tests so far this year.
On June 22, a medium-range Musudan rocket reached an altitude of 1,000km on a lofted trajectory, potentially beyond the range of Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan that are armed with SM-3 missiles designed to hit warheads at the edge of space.
That leaves older PAC-3 Patriot missiles protecting major cities, including Tokyo, as a last line of defense. Their upgrade program would not deliver the first improved batteries until the 2020, in time for the Tokyo Olympics.
Warheads from missiles such as Pyongyang’s Rodong, with an estimated range of 1,300km, travel at speeds of up to 3km per second.
Payloads on rockets like the Musudan, which can fly as far as 3,000km, plunge from space at least twice as fast.
Japan next year plans to acquire a more powerful version of the SM-3 it is jointly developing with the US, dubbed the Block IIA.
However, it has not said when the first would be deployed.
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