Oh, the woes of living close to North Korea. Anybody living close the antagonistic, aggressive dictatorship has to worry about their constant threats of attack. Even if most of these threats are mere political posturing, it's got to make things a bit tense.
With the rumors of a volley of an attack coming on April 25, the anniversary of the foundation of the current North Korean government, Japan has sent one of their Aegis destroyers into the Sea of Japan. According to the article from The Daily Beast, the destroyer will patrol the area from April 3 through April 25, though it may stick around until the end of the month, just in case.
Now, this doesn't mean that there'll definitely be an attack, but considering that North Korea launched a pair of medium-range missiles into the sea on March 26, it's better to be safer than sorry. Granted, this is fairly common behavior from North Korea, what with their constant threats of reactivating their nuclear testing program, but it usually dies down with diplomatic talks between them and UN.
The other major concern is the consistency of the Aegis destroyers in a potential missile-launching scenario. According to a Congressional report linked in the article, the Aegis managed to hit its target 28 out of 34 times. Patriot batteries ground-side should be able to take of the rest of the payload, but if even one makes it through, that could be potentially disastrous. No doubt that's why the US Secretary of Defense pledged to send another two destroyers to Japan by 2017.
[via The Daily Beast]
from Japanator http://ift.tt/ORgSXM
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