Does The U.S. Need To Move Faster on Advancing Missile Defense?

North Korean ballistic-missile test launch, image released May 2017. (Photo: KCNA/via Reuters)

Richard Weitz, NRO: With North Korea Threatening, the U.S. Advances on Missile Defense

We need to move faster than existing plans call for.

North Korea’s murder of Otto Warmbier is yet another reminder that the United States needs a new approach to deal with the Pyongyang problem. Unfortunately, sanctions, threats, and diplomacy have failed to steer North Korea away from making America its primary nuclear target.

In his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last week, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis accurately called North Korea a “most urgent and dangerous threat” to global security. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, speaking at the hearing, noted that “North Korea has been on a relentless path to field a nuclear-armed ICBM that can reach the United States.”

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Update: Best strategy against North Korea: Boosting missile defense (Admiral William Gortney (ret.), Aol.com)

WNU Editor: The threat is from North Korea, but U.S. allies are not unified on how to proceed. Japan appears to be on-board .... Japan, U.S. to mull quicker missile defense upgrades, deployment of Aegis Ashore (Japan Times/KYODO), while opposition in South Korea is growing .... Thousands of South Koreans protest the US' missile defense system (PRI/AFP). And then there are those who say that missile defense will not be enough .... Missile Defense Can't Save Us From North Korea (Kingston Reif, War on the Rocks).