Missiles and Missile Defense Systems

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom

      by

      While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the communique issued by three leaders, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump.While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, Mr. Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next.“This is not about a day, a week or month,” Mr. Biden said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. “This is about decades and decades of relationships that we’re building.” The goal, he added, was to “lay in place a long-term structure for a relationship that will last.”Asked by a reporter why Asia should be confident about American assurances given Mr. Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency on a so-called America First platform, Mr. Biden offered a testimonial to the value of alliances in guaranteeing the nation’s security in dangerous times.“There’s not much, if anything, I agree on with my predecessor on foreign policy,” Mr. Biden said, adding that “walking away from the rest of the world leaves us weaker, not stronger. America is strong with our allies and our alliances and that’s why we will endure.”The meeting at the getaway in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland was a milestone in Mr. Biden’s efforts to stitch together a network of partnerships to counter Chinese aggression in the region. While the United States has long been close to Japan and South Korea individually, the two Asian powers have nursed generations of grievances that kept them at a distance from one another.The alignment at Camp David was made possible by Mr. Yoon’s decision to try to put the past behind the two countries. His rapprochement with Tokyo has not been universally popular at home with a public that harbors long memories of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, but both sides made clear they are dedicated to a fresh start.“That’s a long, bitter colonial wound that President Yoon has to jump over, and Kishida as well,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. “That I think is a consonant expression of the degree to which China’s rather belligerent, punitive behavior has driven together allies, partners and friends within Asia.”Mr. Biden hoped to capitalize on that by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders together for the first stand-alone meeting between the three nations that was not on the sidelines of a larger international summit. He repeatedly praised Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida for “the political courage” they were demonstrating.He chose the resonant setting of Camp David for the talks to emphasize the importance he attaches to the initiative, inviting the leaders to the storied retreat that has been the site of momentous events over the decades, including most memorably Jimmy Carter’s 13-day negotiation in 1978 brokering peace between Israel and Egypt.“This is a big deal,” Mr. Biden said, noting that it was the first time he had invited foreign leaders to the camp since taking office. “This is a historic meeting.”The others echoed the sentiments. “Today will be remembered as a historic day,” Mr. Yoon said. Mr. Kishida agreed, saying the fact that the three could get together “means that we are indeed making a new history as of today.”A stronger collaboration with Japan and South Korea could be a significant pillar in Mr. Biden’s strategy to counter China.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe leaders agreed to establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications, enhance ballistic missile cooperation and expand joint military exercises. They issued a written “commitment to consult” in which they resolved “to coordinate our responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.”The commitment is not as far-reaching as NATO’s mutual security pact, which deems an attack on one member to be an attack on all, nor does it go as far as the defense treaties that the United States has separately with Japan and South Korea. But it cements the idea that the three powers share a special bond and expect to coordinate strategies where possible.China has derided the idea of a “mini-NATO” in Asia, accusing Washington of being provocative, but aides to Mr. Biden stressed the difference from the Atlantic alliance. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.Mr. Biden and his aides maintained that the collaboration sealed at Camp David should not be seen as aimed at China or any other country. “This summit was not about China. This was not the purpose,” the president said. “But obviously China came up.” Instead, he said, “this summit was really about our relationship with each other and defining cooperation across an entire range of issues.”Still, no one had any doubt about the context against which the meeting was taking place. The Camp David Principles issued by the leaders did not directly mention China, but it did “reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a warning against aggressive military actions by Beijing.The documents released were more explicit about nuclear-armed North Korea and the joint efforts they will take to counter its military, cyber and cryptocurrency money laundering threats.Looming in the backdrop was Mr. Trump, whose mercurial actions and bursts of hostility while president flummoxed Japanese and South Korean leaders accustomed to more stable interactions with Washington.At various points, he threatened to withdraw from the U.S. defense treaty with Japan and to pull all American troops out of South Korea. He abruptly canceled joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of North Korea and told interviewers after leaving office that if he had a second term he would force Seoul to pay billions of dollars to maintain the United States military presence.The summit at Camp David was aimed at ending decades of friction between the two Asian countries.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe Asian leaders hope that the three-way accord fashioned by Mr. Biden will help avoid wild swings in the future. The president and his guests sought to institutionalize their new collaboration by committing to annual three-way meetings in the future by whoever holds their offices.“There’s definitely risk-hedging when it comes to political leadership,” said Shihoko Goto, acting director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.”By deepening the cooperation below the leader level through various new mechanisms, she said, the governments may be able to maintain functional ties even if a volatile president occupies the White House.“If a new U.S. president were to avoid going to international conferences or had no interest in engaging, the trilateral institutionalization of ties should be strong enough so that working relations between the three countries would continue,” she said. “So it won’t matter if a president didn’t show up since the working-level military or economic cooperation would be well-established.”It is not the first time allies have questioned the United States’ commitment to its partners. Despite Mr. Biden’s promise at the NATO summit last month that Washington would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine and western allies, some leaders openly asked whether the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be upended by the outcome of the next election.Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit.Mr. Biden in Finland was also asked about whether the U.S. support of NATO would endure. “No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,” Mr. Biden said then.At Camp David on Friday, neither Mr. Yoon nor Mr. Kishida mentioned Mr. Trump directly in their public comments, but they seemed intent on ensuring that their agreement persists beyond their tenures. Mr. Yoon said the nations were focused on building an alliance that could last for years to come. The three nations will hold a “global leadership youth summit to strengthen ties between our future generations,” he said.Endurance was a running theme throughout the day. “We’re opening a new era,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters shortly before the meetings opened, “and we’re making sure that era has staying power.”Ana Swanson More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      North Korea Unveils New Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNorth Korea Unveils New Submarine-Launched Ballistic MissileDays before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration, the North made its latest demonstration of its nuclear might at a Pyongyang military parade. North Korean state media released this photo of missiles at a military parade in Pyongyang, the capital, on Thursday night.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressJan. 15, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETSEOUL, South Korea — A month before the U.S. presidential election, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, held a military parade that featured what appeared to be the country’s largest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile. This week, just days before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration, the North Korean dictator held another parade, showing off a new submarine-launched ballistic missile.To the Kim regime, the nighttime military parades in Pyongyang, the capital, were demonstrations of power meant to boost domestic morale amid crippling economic sanctions. To the Biden administration, they foreshadow what could become the incoming president’s greatest foreign policy challenge.The timing of the two flashy exhibitions has drawn attention to the diplomatic freeze between the two countries. In North Korea, Mr. Biden is inheriting a rival whose nuclear ambition is bolder and more dangerous than it was four years ago, when President Barack Obama left office.The parades underscored that North Korea has been silently ramping up its nuclear capability for years, even as President Trump claimed that his top-down, personality-driven diplomacy with Mr. Kim meant the North was “no longer a nuclear threat.”“If anything, the North’s nuclear threat has only grown,” said Yun Duk-min, a former chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul. “The military parade is evidence.”This week’s parade came at the end of the eight-day congress held by North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, which was closely monitored by outside analysts for clues to how Mr. Kim might recalibrate his policy toward Washington.Kim Jong-un, center, the North’s leader, recently promised to “further strengthen our nuclear deterrence.”Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Kim used the congress to celebrate the North’s nuclear arsenal as one of ​his proudest achievements, and to apologize to his people for the deepening economic woes caused by the pandemic and the devastating international sanctions imposed since the country’s fourth nuclear test in 2016.Mr. Kim’s historic summits with Mr. Trump in Singapore and Vietnam failed to end those sanctions. With his back against the wall and diplomacy with the United States at a standstill, some experts warn that Mr. Kim may return to testing missiles to bring Washington back to the negotiating table with more attractive proposals.North Korea has a history of retreating deeper into isolation and raising tensions to strengthen its leverage when negotiations do not lead to concessions, or when a new American president takes office.“North Korea leaves little doubt about its intentions: It wanted to be treated as an equal in nuclear arms reduction talks with the United States,” said Cheon Seong-whun, a former director of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul. “The new weapons disclosed during two parades have never been tested before and we don’t know whether they are actually working,” Mr. Cheon said. “But we know in what direction North Korea is headed.” The earlier parade, held on Oct. 10 to mark a party anniversary, unveiled what appeared to be the largest intercontinental ballistic missile the North had ever built. It also featured a Pukguksong-4, a new version of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM. Neither weapon has been tested.The SLBM displayed during the parade on Thursday look​ed like yet another upgraded, untested version of the one North Korea has been developing under Mr. Kim, along with its Hwasong land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.Another state media image from the parade on Thursday.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressNorth Korea tested three Hwasong ICBMs in 2017. After the last such test, it claimed that it could now target the continental United States with a nuclear warhead.Images of this week’s parade released through state media showed Mr. Kim proudly observing the neat columns of missiles, rockets, tanks and goose-stepping soldiers marching across the main plaza in Pyongyang, named after his grandfather, the North’s founder, Kim Il-sung.The parade also featured fireworks and military planes firing flares in the night sky as crowds of people danced at the plaza, state media reported on Friday.Kim Jong-un has vowed to strengthen the North’s nuclear deterrent ​since his talks with Mr. Trump stalled​ in 2019​. And as the economy continues to deteriorate, his bargaining opportunities are limited.“The armed forces of the Republic will strictly contain any military threats in the region of the Korean Peninsula and preemptively use the strongest offensive power to thoroughly smash the hostile forces if they jeopardize the security of our state even a bit,” Defense Minister Kim Jong-gwan of North Korea was quoted as saying during the parade. (He was referring to the North, whose formal name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.)At the party congress, Mr. Kim made it clear that the steep economic challenges facing the North would not affect his weapons program. He called his nuclear arsenal the greatest achievement “in the history of the Korean nation” and vowed to “further strengthen our nuclear deterrence.”Dancing in Pyongyang on Thursday.Credit…Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe also offered an unusually detailed wish list of weapons, from “hypersonic gliding-flight warheads” and military reconnaissance satellites to “ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons,” which have become a growing concern for the United States and allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan.North Korea has seen its nuclear force as the best tool for ensuring the continuity of the Kim family’s dynastic rule, and as a bargaining chip to extract economic and other concessions from the United States. During the party congress, Mr. Kim claimed that his nuclear weapons had made North Korea safer from American threats, putting it in a better position to rebuild its economy.His hardening stance reflects “deep rage and disappointment” after his failed negotiations with Mr. Trump, said Lee Byong-chul, a North Korea expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea.The government of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, helped to arrange the Trump-Kim summits, which were centered on cultivating personal trust between the two leaders with the hope of reaching a breakthrough. Mr. Trump wanted a nuclear-free peninsula, and Mr. Kim wanted an end to the sanctions. Their meetings went nowhere, though North Korea has since refrained from major provocations as it waited out the confusion of the American presidential election.The election is now over, but chaos has only deepened in the United States, and Mr. Kim’s patience may be running thin. “We can expect him to raise tensions depending on whether and how Biden responds,” said Mr. Lee.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Dear Joe, It’s Not About Iran’s Nukes Anymore

      by

      With the assassination by Israel of Iran’s top nuclear warhead designer, the Middle East is promising to complicate Joe Biden’s job from day one. President-elect Biden knows the region well, but if I had one piece of advice for him, it would be this: This is not the Middle East you left four years ago.The best way for Biden to appreciate the new Middle East is to study what happened in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2019 — when the Iranian Air Force launched 20 drones and precision-guided cruise missiles at Abqaiq, one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing centers, causing huge damage. It was a seminal event.The Iranian drones and cruise missiles flew so low and with such stealth that neither their takeoff nor their impending attack was detected in time by Saudi or U.S. radar. Israeli military analysts, who were stunned by the capabilities the Iranians displayed, argued that this surprise attack was the Middle East’s “Pearl Harbor.”They were right. The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.A lot of people missed it, so let’s go to the videotape.First, how did President Trump react? He did nothing. He did not launch a retaliatory strike on behalf of Saudi Arabia — even though Iran, unprovoked, had attacked the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.A few weeks later Trump did send 3,000 U.S. troops and some antimissile batteries to Saudi Arabia to bolster its defense — but with this message on Oct. 11, 2019: “We are sending troops and other things to the Middle East to help Saudi Arabia. But — are you ready? Saudi Arabia, at my request, has agreed to pay us for everything we’re doing. That’s a first.”It sure was a first. I’m not here to criticize Trump, though. He was reflecting a deep change in the American public. His message: Dear Saudis, America is now the world’s biggest oil producer; we’re getting out of the Middle East; happy to sell you as many weapons as you can pay cash for, but don’t count on us to fight your battles. You want U.S. troops? Show me the money.That clear shift in American posture gave birth to the first new element that Biden will confront in this new Middle East — the peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and between Israel and Bahrain — and a whole new level of secret security cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which will likely flower into more formal relations soon. (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel reportedly visited Saudi Arabia last week.)In effect, Trump forced Israel and the key Sunni Arab states to become less reliant on the United States and to think about how they must cooperate among themselves over new threats — like Iran — rather than fighting over old causes — like Palestine. This may enable America to secure its interests in the region with much less blood and treasure of its own. It could be Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement.But a key result is that as Biden considers reopening negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal — which Trump abandoned in 2018 — he can expect to find Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates operating as a loose anti-Iran coalition. This will almost certainly complicate things for Biden, owing to the second huge fallout from the Iranian attack on Abqaiq: The impact it had on Israel.After Trump scrapped the nuclear deal, Iran abandoned its commitments to restrict its enrichment of uranium that could be used for a nuclear bomb. But since Biden’s election, Iran has said it would “automatically” return to its nuclear commitments if Biden lifts the crippling sanctions imposed by Trump. Only after those sanctions are lifted, said Tehran, might it discuss regional issues, like curbs on Iran’s precision missile exports and capabilities.This is where the problems will start for Biden. Yes, Israel and the Sunni Arab states want to make sure that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. But some Israeli military experts will tell you today that the prospect of Iran having a nuke is not what keeps them up at night — because they don’t see Tehran using it. That would be suicide and Iran’s clerical leaders are not suicidal.They are, though, homicidal.And Iran’s new preferred weapons for homicide are the precision-guided missiles, that it used on Saudi Arabia and that it keeps trying to export to its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which pose an immediate homicidal threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and U.S. forces in the region. (Iran has a network of factories manufacturing its own precision-guided missiles.)If Biden tries to just resume the Iran nuclear deal as it was — and gives up the leverage of extreme economic sanctions on Iran, before reaching some understanding on its export of precision-guided missiles — I suspect that he’ll meet a lot of resistance from Israel, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.Why? It’s all in the word “precision.” In the 2006 war in Lebanon, Iran’s proxy militia, Hezbollah, had to fire some 20 dumb, unguided, surface-to-surface rockets of limited range in the hope of damaging a single Israeli target. With precision-guided missiles manufactured in Iran, Hezbollah — in theory — just needs to fire one rocket each at 20 different targets in Israel with a high probability of damaging each one. We’re talking about Israel’s nuclear plant, airport, ports, power plants, high-tech factories and military bases.That is why Israel has been fighting a shadow war with Iran for the past five years to prevent Tehran from reaching its goal of virtually encircling Israel with proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza, all armed with precision-guided missiles. The Saudis have been trying to do the same versus Iran’s proxies in Yemen, who have fired on its airports. These missiles are so much more lethal.“Think of the difference in versatility between dumb phones and smartphones,’’ observed Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “For the past two decades we have been consumed by preventing Iran’s big weapon, but it is the thousands of small smart weapons Iran has been proliferating that have become the real and immediate threat to its neighbors.’’That is why Israel and its Gulf Arab allies are not going to want to see the United States give up its leverage on Iran to curb its nuclear program before it also uses that leverage — all those oil sanctions — to secure some commitment to end Iran’s export of these missiles.And that is going to be very, very difficult to negotiate.So, if you were planning a party to celebrate the restoration of the Iran-U. S. nuclear deal soon after Biden’s inauguration, keep the champagne in the fridge. It’s complicated.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More