Weapons US Can Equip Japan, South Korea With To Counter North Korea

Amid mounting tension over North Korea’s belligerence, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the U.S. would be selling Japan and South Korea a “substantially increased” amount of U.S. military equipment to counter the threat from a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

“I am allowing Japan and South Korea to buy a substantially increased amount of highly sophisticated military equipment from the United States,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Though concrete details are yet to emerge over the form these “sophisticated military equipment” will take, here’ s a look at the weapons that are likely to be deployed to counter North Korea's aggression in the region:

Better missile capability

The White House said Monday that the president had agreed in “in principle” to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles, the Independent reported.

A 2012 deal between the two countries had limited South Korea’s missiles to 800 kilometers and warheads to warheads of 500 kilograms.

“Seoul will now be able to launch warheads of 1,000 kilograms, improving its ability to destroy hardened targets,” said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and now a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, Defense One reported.

However, it is unlikely that the U.S will be able to transfer stronger bombs and missiles to South Korea given it has already been raiding its global missile stockpiles for the three-year-old airstrike campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Anti-missile defense

A defense infrastructure that would have a great impact on the mitigating the threat from Pyongyang in the region is an anti-missile defense system.

While Tokyo is planning a major missile-defense upgrade, the South Korean defense ministry said Monday it was ready to install four more launchers to complete the deployment of THAAD interceptor on the peninsula. As of now both Japan and South Korea already have Patriot air-defense missiles.

Japan’s 2018 budget proposal requests funds for Standard Missile-3 Block 2A interceptors, PAC -3 MSE interceptors, upgrades to air and missile defense radar. The two countries are also angling for Aegis Ashore, the land-based version of the air-defense combat system used on many warships of the three countries.

Roman Schweizer, an analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group, said Tokyo is also considering buying THAAD interceptors, Defense One reported.

Aircraft

Both the countries are already buying the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and Japan has already started building its own F-35s. Japan and South Korea are also buying the Global Hawk high-altitude surveillance drone.

Experts have proposed the General Atomics Avenger drone, which can fly higher and faster than propeller-powered drones and can carry 3,000 pounds of sensors or bombs, as being as particularly useful over North Korea. David Alexander, who leads General Atomics’ Aircraft Systems division, has touted the plane’s “long endurance and persistent time on station to start on something,” as being ideal for the region, Defense One reported.

Nuclear weapons

Another option gaining ground is deploying nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo on Monday said he had a talk with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about placing American nuclear weapons in the country. “I told him that it would be good for strategic assets to be sent regularly to the Korean Peninsula and that some South Korean lawmakers and media are strongly pushing for tactical nuclear weapons [to be redeployed],” he said according to the Washington Post.

The Defense Department has not commented on Mattis’s response.

However, experts have said that the tactical deployment of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula would be a bad idea.

While candidate Trump was open to the idea of allowing South Korea and Japan to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, his view on of tactical nuclear weapons after becoming president is still unclear.

But then again, the president has been quoted as saying when it comes to North Korea that “all options are on the table.”