Local military officials Friday concurred with U.S. Defense Secretary Dr. Robert M. Gates about their ability to knock any North Korean missile out of the air should one be launched with intent at Kaua’i or Hawai‘i.
Gates Wednesday said the U.S. military is “in a good position” to prevent any kind of missile attack.
“We echo that,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chuck Bell of the U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith on O‘ahu during a telephone interview Friday.
“We stand ready to defend U.S. territory, without question,” while also supporting diplomatic efforts intended to discourage North Korean leaders from developing long-range missile capabilities, or launching long-range missiles toward any U.S. targets, Bell said.
Missile experts in and out of the U.S. military have said they doubt that the current North Korean missile technology has advanced to the point where Hawai‘i or Kaua‘i could be targets, as the primary North Korean missile would need three stages in order to reach Hawai‘i, and hasn’t tested successfully to the third stage yet.
Still, there are 14 Pacific-based U.S. Navy ships equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system that has been successfully used in anti-missile tests at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands near Kekaha on Kaua‘i.
Also at PMRF is the U.S. Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, THAAD, which is a truck-based, anti-missile missile system capable of knocking rogue or enemy missiles out of the sky within 100 miles of Kaua‘i.
Both have tested successfully at PMRF, with the latest in mid-March involving multiple incoming missiles and coordination between sailors aboard the Aegis-equipped USS Lake Erie and THAAD soldiers on the ground at PMRF.
Both systems employ “hit-to-kill” technology which require direct hits on incoming missiles, with the kinetic energy of the defensive missiles designed to destroy the enemy missile.
Augmenting current defense efforts is the huge, ship-based, golf-ball-looking radar system which launched for the western Pacific from Pearl Harbor on O‘ahu earlier this week.
Most of the military technology is under the umbrella of the federal Missile Defense Agency, at mda.mil.
