Implementing the Maritime Strategy – Japan/U.S. Missile Defense Flight Test Successful
Deterrence. Deterring aggression must be viewed in global, regional, and transnational terms via conventional, unconventional, and nuclear means. Effective Theater Security Cooperation activities are a form of extended deterrence, creating security and removing conditions for conflict. Maritime ballistic missile defense will enhance deterrence by providing an umbrella of protection to forward-deployed forces and friends and allies, while contributing to the larger architecture planned for defense of the United States. ("A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower")
(17 Dec 07) Rear Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and Lt. General Henry “Trey” Obering III, Director of the United Stated Missile Defense Agency, announced today the successful completion of the cooperative Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) intercept flight test, off the coast of Kauai in Hawaii. The event, designated Japan Flight Test Mission 1 (JFTM-1), marked the first time that an Allied Navy ship has successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target with the sea-based midcourse engagement capability provided by Aegis BMD.
The JFTM-1 test event verified the new engagement capability of the Aegis BMD configuration of the recently upgraded Japanese destroyer, JS KONGO (DDG-173). At approximately 12:05 pm (HST), 7:05 am Tokyo time on Dec. 18, 2007, a ballistic missile target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. JS KONGO crew members detected and tracked the target. The Aegis Weapon System then developed a fire control solution and at approximately 12:08 pm (HST), 7:08 am Tokyo time, a Standard Missile -3 (SM-3) Block IA was launched. Approximately 3 minutes later, the SM-3 successfully intercepted the target approximately 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean. FTM-1 was the first time that a Japanese ship was designated to launch the interceptor missile, a major milestone in the growing cooperation between Japan and the U.S. Previous participation had been limited to tracking and communications exercises.
BMD is a home and away game – and one maritime forces are imminently suited to contribute to. The above is yet another milestone on a path that traces its steps to the wake-up call engendered by the North Korean TD-1 shot that crossed over the northern Japanese islands in 1998. The more participants that can be integrated as sensors and/or shooters into multi-layered theater and global missile defense architectures the better chance there stands to deter and if need be, defeat the use of ballistic missiles. As such, the implications for regional defense should be clear to those nations who are seeking, or those who contemplate, to dominate the region via the threat of ballistic missiles. To be sure, one joint test isn’t the final plank in a regional defense plan. Nevertheless, it is a significant step forward and bodes well for more to follow.
BMD is a mission area where Navy has demonstrated outstanding success. We again underscore our concurrence in seeing it highlighted in the Maritime Strategy and encourage Navy to continue to take on major leadership roles within the missile defense community while expanding cooperative efforts with our allies and partners.
USS Lake Erie (CG 70) also participated
Dang. I thought Kongo looked like a Burke-class DDG. and wondered if she was built in Bath. After much googling I find she’s a derivative. Ain’t the ‘net grand? 😉
Is it just me, or does that “Rising Sun” flag snapping in the breeze give you willies as well?
ASW
It’s not just you, ASW. I noticed it, too, and was a bit surprised. I thought the “rising sun” ensign wasn’t used any longer by the JMSDF, if it ever was. And I was wrong. Obviously. But yeah: unsettling.
OK, so how different is that from say, looking across the ramp at the iron cross on a MiG-29? Or ramp it back a century or so, being in the RN and seeing the Stars and Stripes hove into view? Scroll up and take another look at the shot of the Kongo at the top of the article – she has just passed the Arizona memorial with the crew having rendered honors as she is outbound – to participate in a joint defensive exercise which is the first of its kind; 66 years and 10 days after Pearl Harbor. I think that bespeaks volumes for the nature of our country and its conduct post-conflict compared to other so-called great powers in history. Not saying we should forget Pearl Harbor, Bataan, or the other events in that theater of WW2 – and if you follow my writings you’ll well see the gist of my efforts (as I know you do Buck 😉 ). Different generation we’re working with now and we’re facing a different threat and frankly, I’m glad to have a professional group like the JSMDF onboard with us, especially in the BMDS field.
-SJS
OK, so how different is that from say, looking across the ramp at the iron cross on a MiG-29?
Just a generational thing, I suppose. Most of us still have relatives, or memories of relatives we knew, who personally fought in WW II. Not all that many of us have relatives who went up against Richthofen, et al. And then there are all those WW II movies with the classic shot of the Rising Sun ensign snapping on a carrier’s mast with the accompanying sinister music, as well.
Your larger point is taken about us as a post-WW II society and having the Japanese as allies. I’m on that same page.