Thursday 09 / May / 2024
The U.S. military on Tuesday cheering a successful, first-ever missile defence test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile - as North Korea aims to perfect an ICBM of its own.
It's a major milestone for a programme meant to defend against a mounting North Korean threat.
Luckily for the Pentagon, the test of the $40 billion programme, which was by no means guaranteed to work, did. Before the test, the Pentagon tried to tamp down expectations, noting that the United States had multiple ways to try to shoot down a missile from North Korea.
Including a THAAD anti-missile system in place in South Korea. However, newly-elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in is not pleased with recent additions of the controversial system, ordering a probe after the Defence Ministry failed to inform him that four more launchers had been brought into the country.
During his campaign, Moon called for a parliamentary review of the THAAD system - whose deployment has also infuriated China, North Korea's lone major ally.
And while North Korea boasts about its progress, taunting the West saying its recent missile launch was a great leap towards sending "a bigger gift package to the Yankees" , the country still has technical constraints, including a lack of satellites to operate a terminal stage missile guidance system property.
