Ballistic Missile Threat Research Articles

Japan's Pacificism as National Identity and a 'Normal' Security Option

Japan faces its most serious and complex defence environment since the end of World War II. The country holds two significant security concerns: first, and critically, China’s burgeoning military, increasingly aggressive diplomacy, and destabilising actions around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea; second, North Korea’s continued unpredictable rhetoric and actions in its nuclear arming program and ballistic missile testing. Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy proposes two unprecedented policy ideas to counter these threats: first, to significantly increase Japan’s defence budget; second, to acquire counterstrike long-range missile capabilities in response to an attack. Nonetheless, despite these security issues and policy developments, this article argues that formal amendment of the peace clause in art 9 of the Japanese Constitution remains unlikely. To understand the improbability of constitutional amendment, this article first explores Japan’s constitutional pacifism under the post-World War II Yoshida Doctrine and the US–Japan cornerstone security alliance, as well as the context of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat and the emotive issue of abductions of Japanese citizens. The article then turns to Japan’s historic imperial relationship with China as an avenue to understand contemporary relations, including the key issues of trade and its link to security, and the Senkaku Islands sovereignty dispute. It concludes that formal constitutional amendment of the peace clause remains unlikely in the short to medium term.

China’s Military in the Indo-Pacific Region: Security Implications for India and its Strategic Partners

This article studies China’s Coercive Military Clandestine in the Indo-Pacific Region, which is China’s covert and overt actions in terms of its strategies and offensive- Missile and Naval capabilities against India’s mainland and maritime space. Besides, how the fortifying Island chain strategy of China from South China Sea to Western Indian Ocean region, will be a covert strategic locations to leverage its power projection against India were studied. In addition expansion of its overseas military expedition and coercive offensive capabilities in the indopacific region were analysed. Further the defensive capability of India and the United States deployments in South Korea to countermeasure China’s raising missile threats were studied. Finally this study proposes the security implications along with policy prescriptions as inputs for India and its strategic partners: To strengthen India’s strategic countermeasures for strategic autonomy on par with China’s aggressive posture, this study identifies the choke points for strategic locations of China in the Indo-Pacific region. Further military coalitions in the western Indian Ocean region to countermeasures China’s strategy, and combined missile defense program to deter China’s long range ballistic missile threats for regional stability and geostrategic countermeasures were suggested.

Suggestions for ROK’s Building Space Power as PUBLIC VALUES

Purpose: The study aims to examine the strategies and trends of military space power in neighboring countries and derive implications for ROK’s building space Power. This article tackles both conceptual and empirical dimensions of this topic through a series of four linked questions: (1)What is Sun Tzu s Strategy and how does it relate to space; (2)What is neighboring state s space strategy surrounding the Korean Peninsula?; (3)What kind of implications can we draw from the neighboring countries space strategy?; (4)What are policy alternatives for the ROK to build space power? Method: For better analysis By using the Sun Tzu s five fundamental factors(do[道] the way, cheon[天] seasons, chi[地] terrain, cheng[將] leadership, and beub[法] management), a factor that predicts the success or failure of a strategic plan, this study attempted to draw implications and policy alternatives for the ROK by looking at the cases of military space force construction in neighboring countries. Sun Tzu introduces this as the docheonchichengbeub . Results: The policy options for the ROK military by applying Sun Tzu s Osa(五事) as follows. First, In terms of Do(道), the Moon Jae-in government has a strong will to build a foundation for strengthening space power under the responsible defense policy for the early return of wartime operational control. Currently, Korea s space power remains insignificant compared to neighboring countries. Efforts should be made to lay the foundation for the creation of an advanced space force by sharing such a vision with the leader. Second, the construction of space power in the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan surrounding the Korean Peninsula is gradually intensified as the factors of Cheon(天) and Chi(地). Therefore, there is a need for South Korea to create a road map for the construction of space power and implement positive space power building policies. Third, as a factor of Cheng(將), the Korean military has many problems to be improved in terms of organization, institutional maintenance, education, and technology development for space power. Fourth, to develop military space power in terms of the establishment of a policy base, laws and systems supporting space development shall be reorganized, and at the same time, the con-cept of space strategy and operational doctrine shall be developed, a defensive deterrent alliance strat-egy suitable for mid-sized countries, and a space power construction plan has to be established to util-ize space power centered on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Conclusion: It is required to strengthen the agility of operations by increasing the linkage between unmanned systems and satellites for the enhancement of public values such as saving lives in the emer-gency. Hence, it is suggested that the launch of a small satellite that are equipped with a high-performance optical camera has to be carried out earlier than scheduled. To respond to North Korea s ballistic missile threats, it is requested to expand high-resolution military reconnaissance satellite as-sets which are equipped with early warning capabilities.

‘Arrow’ Mythology Revisited: The Curious Case of the Reagan Administration, Israel and SDI Cooperation

When the Reagan administration first invited Israel to join the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1985, Israel was only expected to play a relative minor role in the program and bid for non-sensitive research grants. However, starting in 1986, the focus of the endeavor began to shift. In time, the US was funding Israeli efforts to indigenously develop the Arrow, a missile defense system designed to use land-based interceptors to address regional ballistic missile threats. This was a sharp departure from the objectives of SDI and the imagined role that Israel was supposed to play within that initiative. This article addresses how and why this shift had occurred. I examine the existing narrative in the literature which maintains that Israel had initiated Arrow with the help of the Israel Lobby, and dispel it. I demonstrate that it was the Reagan administration, motivated by domestic political considerations, legal and diplomatic calculations, and strategic priorities, which pushed for Arrow’s initiation, despite reservations expressed by the Israeli government and the Israeli military.

Going Viral: The 3 Rs of Social Media Messaging during Public Health Emergencies.

Going Viral: The 3 Rs of Social Media Messaging during Public Health Emergencies.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL: Mobile Telephony, Information Verification, and Expressive Communication During Hawaii’s False Missile Alert

On Saturday, 13 January 2018, residents of Hawaii received a chilling message through their smartphones. It read, in all caps, BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. The message was mistakenly sent, but many residents lived in a threatened state of mind for the 38 minutes it took before a retraction was made. This study is based on a survey of 418 people who experienced the alert, recollecting their immediate responses, including how they attempted to verify the alert and how they used their mobile devices and social media for expressive interactions during the alert period. With the ongoing testing in the United States of nationwide Wireless Emergency Alerts, along with similar expansions of these systems in other countries, the event in Hawaii serves to illuminate how people understand and respond to mobile-based alerts. It shows the extreme speed that information—including misinformation—can flow in an emergency, and, for many, expressive communication affects people’s reactions.

Sword and Shield

The security environment surrounding Japan has become more severe as North Korea continued to develop its nuclear arsenal. Additionally, China’s military development within Japan’s surroundings has also increased the security dilemma in East Asia, galvanizing Japan to respond to the contingencies accordingly. As North Korea and China were known to cooperate closely in developing North’s nuclear arsenal, Japan which is geographically close to North Korea and has been one of its missile targets, responded militarily to protect its mainland from future nuclear aggressions. To that end, Japan has endeavored to increase its ballistic missile defense capability through strengthening its alliance with the United States, Japan’s strategic ally since the end of World War II. This research elucidates Japan’s national strategy and defense policy in response to North Korea’s ballistic missile threat, and how Japan cooperates with the United States in building its ballistic missile defense capability under the Japan-U.S. Alliance.

Level of Emergency Preparedness Before and After a False Missile Alert in Hawaii

Introduction:On January 13, 2018, a false ballistic missile alert that lasted 38 minutes was issued across Oahu, Hawaii, United States. As a result of a system failure, an erroneous text message was sent that stated, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter.”Aim:The research team wanted to know the degree of reported anxiety triggered by the event and if knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors for individual/family emergency preparedness (EP) changed post-event.Methods:A 50-question survey that asked about individual and family EP pre- and post-event, and the level of anxiety triggered by the event, was administered to a convenience sample of full-time adult residents of Oahu. The study was conducted over a 6-8 week period post-event. Statistical analysis was used to identify factors associated with an increasing level of EP post-event and reported event-triggered anxiety.Results:209 participants completed the survey (29% male, 71% female) with about one half living with children. One third were essential workers. Key factors that correlate with increasing various areas of EP post-event include higher educational, receipt of electronic emergency alerts, prior emergency training, and higher reported connectedness to community. Those with higher event anxiety were more likely to develop and practice an EP plan post-event, encourage EP with friends, and report a higher level of community connectedness. The elderly were more likely to have higher levels of EP before and after the event but were less likely to receive emergency alert notifications or have EP training.Discussion:While the event was very unfortunate, it did seem to stimulate citizen disaster EP among some groups. Additional research should explore the utility of increasing EP education for communities immediately after disasters, tailoring this education for groups, and targeting the elderly for participation in the emergency alert system.

Public Health Emergency Risk Communication and Social Media Reactions to an Errant Warning of a Ballistic Missile Threat - Hawaii, January 2018.

On January 13, 2018, at 8:07 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time, an errant emergency alert was sent to persons in Hawaii. An employee at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (EMA) sent the errant alert via the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) during a ballistic missile preparedness drill, advising persons to seek shelter from an incoming ballistic missile. WEA delivers location-based warnings to wireless carrier systems, and EAS sends alerts via television and radio (1). After 38 minutes, at 8:45 a.m., Hawaii EMA retracted the alert via WEA and EAS (2). To understand the impact of the alert, social media responses to the errant message were analyzed. Data were extracted from Twitter* using a Boolean search for tweets (Twitter postings) posted on January 13 regarding the false alert. Tweets were analyzed during two 38-minute periods: 1) early (8:07-8:45 a.m.), the elapsed time the errant alert circulated until the correction was issued and 2) late (8:46-9:24 a.m.), the same amount of elapsed time after issuance of the correction. A total of 5,880 tweets during the early period and 8,650 tweets during the late period met the search criteria. Four themes emerged during the early period: information processing, information sharing, authentication, and emotional reaction. During the late period, information sharing and emotional reaction themes persisted; denunciation, insufficient knowledge to act, and mistrust of authority also emerged as themes. Understanding public interpretation, sharing, and reaction to social media messages related to emergencies can inform development and dissemination of accurate public health messages to save lives during a crisis.

Mitigating the Threat of Nuclear-Weapon Proliferation via Nuclear-Submarine Programs

ABSTRACT Brazil is building a nuclear-powered attack submarine, South Korea has in the past asserted its need for nuclear-powered attack submarines to deal with the threat of North Korean nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and Iran has asserted more vaguely its need for naval nuclear propulsion. All three countries are non-weapon-state parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Their interest in naval reactors brings with it two challenges to the NPT: (1) The safeguards “loophole” under which a country can withdraw nuclear materials from IAEA safeguards indefinitely for allowed “non-peaceful activities”; and (2) A justification for the acquisition of national uranium-enrichment facilities because the international suppliers of enrichment services have peaceful-use requirements. In fact, Brazil’s acquisition of enrichment was driven by its navy. It is argued, however, that nuclear-powered attack submarines have advantages over modern conventional attack submarines primarily in their ability to transit great distances at high speed whereas only a few countries have foreign military commitments requiring such capabilities. For defense of nearby waters against foreign navies, attack submarines are merely one component of a complex system of anti-submarine aircraft and surface vessels and underwater sensor networks. Conventional attack submarines are no less effective and much less costly than nuclear-powered attack submarines in this role.

Missile Defense Review 2019: New Features and Approaches

Missile Defense Review 2019 (MDR) was released after almost a year of delay. The article delivers analysis of origin and significance of main MDR features. The Review is one of main documents on military policy of D. Trump administration. The article consists of five parts. The first part is about missile threat assessment. Future trends of missile defense architecture development can be detected in a way how missile threats are characterized. The second part is about missile defense architecture. It contains an overview of main new features which was established in missile defense strategy and architecture. Analysis of origin of these changes is also given. The third part contains a characterization of missile defense research & development, testing and acquisition approach presented in MDR. The fourth part is about missile defense cooperation between the U.S. and their allies in various regions. The final part of the article contains findings regarding possible consequences of MDR for strategic stability and regional security matters. MDR confirms several features which are fundamentally new for U.S. missile defense strategy and doctrine (for example, “left of launch” operations). These missile defense programs and concepts have been developed during first years of D. Trump presidency. MDR addresses not only ballistic missile threats but also hypersonic and cruise missile threats for the U.S. homeland, deployed forces and allies. Almost each part of MDR has new features which can influence U.S. missile defense development. Trump administration approach to missile defense development and deployment could have profound effect both on strategic stability and security environment in various regions.

False missile alert creates confusion for chemists in Hawaii

Waking at home early Saturday, Jan. 13 to the sound of his phone’s shrill emergency tone, University of Hawaii, Manoa, chemistry graduate student Parker Crandall read three terse sentences: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Crandall and his roommates rushed to find more details about the situation using their phones. They didn’t have a television or an internet connection because they were moving soon and had cut off their service early. After several minutes of debating whether the danger of a missile attack was real, the group decided to take action. Crandall knew of a fallout shelter in the basement of the chemistry building Bilger Hall at the UH Manoa campus, located about a three-minute drive from their apartment on the island of Oahu. He had never been inside the shelter but he had heard stories of it and remembered it was

Oceanian Pain in the Nuclear Epoch, Or: How I Learned to Love Epeli Hau'ofa's <em>Kisses in the Nederends</em>

Oceanian Pain in the Nuclear Epoch, Or:How I Learned to Love Epeli Hau' of a's Kisses in the Nederends Lea Lani Kinikini Kauvaka (bio) If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it —Zora Neale Hurston From Hau'ofa, with Love Epeli Hau'ofa, the late writer and much beloved professor at The University of the South Pacific (USP), published his second novel, Kisses in the Nederends (1987), at a zenith point of the "nuclear-free and independent" movement in the South Pacific. Unlike his first novel Tales of the Tikongs (which took him four years to write), Hau'ofa wrote Kisses in the Nederends in six months, deciding to forego the additional six months he had originally allotted for revisions during a sabbatical year. Hau'ofa joked with his colleague Subramani in their interview, "A Promise of Renewal," published at the back of the second edition, that he did not want Nederends "to smell like a brand new hospital," stating that he preferred it remain "raw." It is little wonder then, that as a graduate student, I personally found Nederends difficult to swallow. It bothered me even more when, as a lecturer, I noticed my students had a similar reaction: they tended to gravitate towards (and valorize) Tales of the Tikongs, and, just like me, left Nederends undigested. Over time, I began to piece together a method for teaching how to love Nederends. Nederends is a book that requires rather more work than usual, but it is very much worth it. Thirty years after its publication, the ongoing militarization in Oceania, particularly by the United States, casts a long, ominous shadow. Recently a false alarm was sent to cell phones across the archipelago of Hawai'i stating, "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." Noelani Arista, a professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa wrote on Twitter shortly after: "people on the continent who imagine that Hawai'i is somewhere on the [End Page 125] margins—we are the tip of the American spear" (@noeolali 2018). Coupled with the real threats of climate change and ongoing resource extraction by foreign corporate entities, debt imperialism, and economic dependencies, it is more critical than ever to use Nederends as the cipher it was intended to be. For students, especially those from the Pacific region, Nederends has the potential to disrupt dogmatic thinking and generate critical thinking. In my courses, Nederends is presented as a theoretical text which speaks to (neo)liberal consensus and modernization regimes as a chronic affliction affecting former and current colonies, states, and territories in the Pacific. Such pains are often concealed in our thinking, and class discussion centers on the collective body's (symbolized by the protagonist Oilei Bombaki's ailing body afflicted with a "pain in the arse") relationship to pain and suffering as we begin to talk through the metaphor of pain towards the search for relief and the lure of doping agents along the way. Class discussions also often move towards personal narrative that share the degree to which pain and suffering is socio-politically and culturally sublimated, rather than depositioned. Amongst Oceanian students, the conversations around sublimation run particularly deep. In particular, we draw a connection between the concept of the "nederends" as a stand-in for the decolonizing "third world" or, as the current President of the United States of America recently phrased it, "shithole countries" (Davis 2018), "nederend" and "shithole" being synonymous with "anus." In our classes, we slow down a few absurd moments from Nederends to ascertain that directionality is often scrambled as a way to disorient and question the "order of things," notably in the extended passage on the "Uppertuks" and "Lowertuks," which is a rowdy but challenging interlude in which the "body worlds" of two mythical tribes are humorously represented as territorializing different bodily functions in a mad dash to secure power and privilege (i.e. the rational head versus the sensational body). This conversation links to learning world systems theory and disturbing thinking around mapping, in particular the Mercator map projection and North-South binaries. We also talk...

북한의 핵전략과 잠수함발사탄도미사일 (SLBM)위협분석을 통한 한국의 대응전략

북한의 핵전략과 잠수함발사탄도미사일 (SLBM)위협분석을 통한 한국의 대응전략

Modeling on Ballistic Missile Threat Assessment

Ballistic Missile (BM) threat assessment is the chief problem of Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) assistant decision-making. Firstly, the BM threat assessment model is constructed through qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis on threat assessment indexes influencing the threat assessment degree; then Improved Clonal Selection Algorithm Optimizing Neural Network (ICLONALG-NN) is designed to solve the model through introducing crossover operator and population update operator into traditional CLONALG to optimize Neural Network parameters. Experimental simulation confirms the superiority and practicability of assistant decision-making model solved by ICLONALG-NN.

Deterring Chinese Ballistic Missile Threats to the U.S. Homeland

The Chinese government has made great strides to creating an improved and increasingly capable nuclear arsenal. Despite these developments and deployments, the U.S. government continues to rely on dialogue and strategic stability to deter U.S.-Chinese war. This sole reliance on offensive strategic forces fails to adequately protect the American people from Chinese ballistic missile threats, especially ones armed with nuclear weapons. Preventing a Chinese nuclear weapon from annihilating U.S. cities will do more for deterring nuclear war than emphasizing dialogue and strategic stability while the Chinese government continues to modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal.There are no absolutes in the world of international relations and politics. It is, therefore, prudent to ask whether the United States will be prepared to counter given weapon systems. Defense planners cannot sit on the sidelines and wait for the resolution of a debate over a potential adversary's intentions. – Christopher McConnaughy1

Strategic Uncertainty and Missile Defence: Revisiting the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate

Strategic uncertainty remains a significant challenge for defence planners and national leaders responsible for developing and acquiring future military capabilities. Concerns in the United States over missile proliferation during the 1990s were embodied in the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which predicted the emergence of a long-range ballistic missile threat by 2015. Comparing the NIEs predictions with the actual evolution of the threat reveals not only an overly pessimistic evaluation but also politicization of the intelligence assessment. At the time of its release, the report added to a growing sense of vulnerability and further encouraged policy-makers to make suboptimal missile defence acquisition decisions. In particular, the worst-case scenario thinking exemplified by the 1999 NIE contributed to an unnecessarily rushed testing programme, the premature deployment of homeland missile defence and an oversized system in Europe. Although missile defence may have strategic value, the rush to deploy has resulted in a costly and less effective military capability due to unfounded fears of strategic surprise and entrenched notions of the ballistic missile threat. Strategic uncertainty will always be a challenge, but focusing solely on developing capabilities with less regard to the actual threat environment is a recipe for costly and ineffective weapons systems.

The fight against terrorism

Cooperation between NATO and the UN last few years is quite extended. NATO and the UN expand their cooperation in the fight against modern terrorism at all levels that act or institutional field, conceptually and politically. Cooperation and consultation between these organizations not only apply to dealing with crisis situations, but their collaboration extends to other issues such as civil-military cooperation, the fight against human trafficking, the fight against terrorism, and more. The most important mission of NATO today is the mission in Afghanistan, was established with a mandate from the UN in 2001 and is under the leadership of NATO in August 2003, under the name of ISAF - International Security Assistance Force. Challenges that threaten the interests of the Euro-Atlantic alliance are: terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, the threat of ballistic missiles, conventional armed forces, cyber attacks, energy security and climate change.

Canada in the Great Power Game, by Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer Canada in the Power Toronto: Random House Canada, 2014. 423 pp., $34.95 (cloth) ISBN: 978-0-307-36168-4For the past three decades Gwynne Dyer has been an incisive and often contrarian writer on international security affairs. Canada and the Power continues this tradition. It reads like a series of lectures delivered to a general audience interested in the evolution of the international system, and Canada's place in it, through the great conflicts of the twentieth century. The result is informative and accessible, if somewhat incomplete.Dyer mixes history-chronologically tracing Canada's participation in wars and the often tense periods of peace in between-with an analysis of political decision making and the public's evolving opinion of Canada's overseas engagements. Interspersed with this are quotations from the soldiers, diplomats, and statespeople who participated in and shaped Canada's transition from colonial dependence to what could be described as pseudo-independence from the whims and priorities of larger nations. Between the main chapters Dyer takes the reader on several counterfactual journeys, or excursions, in which he permits himself to ask and answer what might have happened had Canada not gone to war in 1914.Dyer's examination of the wars of the first half of the twentieth century reveals that Canada played the great game of nations because a healthy plurality of voters and the political class wished it so. The author seems uncomfortable with this, emphasizing the political headaches it caused for successive prime ministers who struggled to reconcile their own (and English Canada's) affinity for Britain with the cause of national unity. They were aware of the emergence of national interests that might be distinct from those of the imperial overlord but, recognizing that the times were critical, knew that Canada could not stand aloof-even at the price of stoking nationalism in Quebec or the resentment of prairie farmers. But just what the Great Power Game is (or was) is only vaguely defined, leaving the reader to wonder what motivates great-power behaviour, and how smaller states such as Canada could play the game to their own advantage.Dyer's suggestion that the First World War had no moral content (175) will strike some readers as contentious, but it deserves a fair hearing as we mark the centenary of that conflagration. His tale of how Canadian policymakers passed up opportunities to change the rules of the great game for the better will feel like a bucket of cold water. Whereas Canadians are apt to think of themselves as longtime supporters of collective security (i.e., the common duty of all nations to oppose, and if necessary reverse, naked aggression), Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was clearly no fan of the League of Nations. Like his American contemporaries he did not appreciate the globalizing nature of security in the wake of the War.The game continued after 1945 as the great powers forged a more durable peace through the United Nations, of which Dyer writes approvingly, if not critically. He is at his provocative best when he tackles the excesses of the nuclear arms race and the fateful decision to acquire the BOMARC nuclear-tipped missile at a time when the manned bomber was being eclipsed by the threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles. …

Imperialist vs Rogue. Japan, North Korea and the Colonial Issue since 1945

The present paper is an attempt on grasping with the Japanese colonization in Korea through two main issues: the colonial past as an important stake in the Japan-North Korea negotiations since 1945, and the status of the Japanese colonization among the Japanese public debate.In 1991, during the negotiations aiming at the normalization between Japan and North Korea, « settling the past » constituted a main issue before reaching to the consensus of the P’yŏngyang Declaration, the 17th of September 2002. The Declaration mentions apologies for the colonial domination and preconizes a strong « economical cooperation », meaning actually the payment of indemnities to North Korea, and re-enacting the same type of resolution decided toward South Korea some 35 five years ago.In Japan, the persistence of regional security issues with North Korea (the threat of ballistic and nuclear missiles, repeated abductions of Japanese citizens) and the well mediatized idea of North Korea as a « rogue state » tends to obliterate, in the public Japanese mind, the colonial past and the former Japanese domination in Korea. Although very well documented et studied in Japan among scholars, the colonial domination, thus, constituted a weapon of choice in the self-legitimization rhetoric of the P’yŏngyang regime and Kim Il-sŭng, since its very foundation.