World War 3: Japan ‘wants missiles with enough range to STRIKE North Korea’
JAPAN is preparing to acquire precision air-launched missiles that for the first time would give it the capability to strike North Korean missile sites, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Express.com
Tue, Dec 5, 2017
Japan plans to put money aside in its next defence budget starting April to study whether its F-15 fighters could launch longer-range missiles including Lockheed Martin Corp’s extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER), which can hit targets 1,000 km (620 miles) away, said one the sources with knowledge of the plan.
He said: “There is a global trend for using longer range missiles and it is only natural that Japan would want to consider them.”
The sources asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorised to talk to media.
Japan is also interested in buying the 500 km-range Joint Strike Missile designed by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to be carried by the F-35 stealth fighter, Fuji Television reported earlier.
Neither of those two items are included in a 5.26 trillion yen ($46.76 billion) budget request already submitted by Japan’s Ministry of Defence, however additional funds would be made available to evaluate the purchase of these missiles, the sources said.
The change suggests that the growing threat posed by North Korean ballistic missiles has given proponents of a strike capability the upper hand in military planning.
Restrictions on strike weapons imposed by its war-renouncing constitution means Japan’s missile force is composed of anti-aircraft and anti-ship munitions with ranges of less than 300 kms (186 miles).
Any decision to buy longer range weapons capable of striking North Korea or even the Chinese mainland would therefore be controversial, but proponents argue that the strike weapons can play a defensive role.
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