Japan to radically upgrade missile defense system

(Baonghean.vn) - A source from the Japanese government said on October 17 that the country may add about 1 billion USD in defense spending to upgrade its ballistic missile defense system after a series of recent missile and nuclear tests by North Korea.

The PAC-3 Patriot missile defense system is being deployed in Japan. Photo: Reuters.

According to the Japanese government, this spending is expected to be submitted in the fiscal year 2017 budget plan starting in April 2017, which is mainly for the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system and the Aegis Ashore surface-to-air missile system installed on warships in Japanese waters.

In addition, this budget is also used to improve the range and accuracy of the PAC-3 Patriot defense system.

However, Japanese government sources also noted that the deployment of the THAAD or Aegis Ashore systems could take years. In addition, upgrading the PAC-3 Patriot system cannot take place in a short time because the companies directly involved - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Raytheon Corporation - are already operating at maximum capacity.

Earlier the same day, the Sankei newspaper reported that the Japanese Ministry of Defense had requested about 300 billion yen (equivalent to 2.9 billion USD) in the third supplementary budget. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has yet to say whether this supplementary budget will be approved by the National Assembly.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense has not yet made any comments regarding the above incident.

Thanh Hien

(According to Reuters)