Volume 9, Issue 8
The Japan Defense Agency hopes to introduce by 2007 a two-phase, layered ballistic missile shield based on existing United States technology. This will involve a lower-tier Patriot (PAC-3) surface-to-air missile capability designed to intercept cruise and ballistic missiles close to the terminal stage of their flight trajectories, and an upper-tier, exo-atmospheric defence involving Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) boosters mounted on Aegis-equipped destroyers. These plans represent a radical shift in policy, which until now has stressed only precautionary research and development in collaboration with the US. They are intended to confront East Asia's expanding ballistic missile and Weapons of Mass Destruction threats, principally those emanating from North Korea.
Volume 10, Issue 6
The transfer of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capabilities to countries in Asia embodies difficult dilemmas for the United States. Washington must be mindful of the complications that its transfers might cause, yet equally it must be responsive to the growing expansion of the ballistic missile threat facing its friends and allies if it is to secure their cooperation in regards to both its immediate power projection objectives and its larger geopolitical interests in Asia. Even more importantly, it has to appreciate that eschewing BMD transfers would create problems of its own.
Volume 10, Issue 3
Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, defence planners are seeking to exploit the information-age Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that has preoccupied their American counterparts for the last decade. Armed forces as diverse as those of Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan have begun to develop RMA-type capabilities. Prowess in information and communication technology has played an important part in the economic development of those Asia-Pacific countries where interest in military transformation is strongest, and provides a necessary technological underpinning for national efforts to benefit from the RMA.
