N. Korea attack on South would be lethal

By Franklin Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, February 9, 2003

SEOUL — The Korean peninsula is a well-worn chessboard scarred by a half-century of war and tension. But this time, analysts warn, the end game could be new and deadly.

“This is hair-trigger stuff,” said longtime Korea observer and expert Don Oberdorfer, author of “The Two Koreas.” “I don’t like it.”

Oberdorfer said he’s troubled by recent messages released by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s propaganda outlet. Some were attributed to foreign ministry spokesmen or said “the KNCA is authorized to state…”

“Those aren’t typical propaganda statements,” Oberdorfer said to Stars and Stripes. “Those come from the highest levels in North Korea” and are intended to send serious messages “to … our government and other governments.”

Among the messages, he said, North Korea “would not stand by for the threat of pre-emptive action against their facilities.”

If a conflict did escalate, most analysts agreed, North Korea almost certainly would lose to the better-armed, better-equipped and better-trained U.S. forces — but not before it wreaked havoc.

U.S. Forces Korea and others estimate massive casualties in and around Seoul — up to 1 million in the first 24 hours alone — even calling South Korea’s capital “the kill box.”

More than 21 million civilians are in the Seoul metropolitan area. At about 50 miles from the Demilitarized Zone, they’re well within North Korean artillery range.

North Korea has a vast arsenal of chemical and other mass-killer weapons, report Korea analysts, including Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Even 24 hours of war on the Korean peninsula would be tremendously costly in civilian deaths,” said Donald P. Gregg, former CIA station chief in South Korea from 1973-75 and U.S. ambassador to Seoul from 1989-93, in an interview with Stripes.

‘Just be a hellacious environment’

“We believe that the North Koreans will open an attack with a large artillery barrage — massive artillery to try to penetrate our defenses,” Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas, USFK senior intelligence officer, told Stripes. Within the first hours of an attack, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 artillery rounds could rain down on Seoul, Stephen Oertwig, a USFK spokesman, told Stripes.

Roughly 70 percent of the North’s ground forces are positioned near the DMZ, USFK has estimated.

It’s believed the North has more than 13,000 cannons, rocket launchers and other artillery systems. More than 4,000 are ranged along the DMZ, many nestled inside hardened underground shelters like reinforced bunkers and tunnel networks, making it “nearly impossible” for U.S.-South Korean forces to hit them, according to unclassified USFK documents.

Others are on mobile launchers and more able to elude counter-fire.

Initial hours and days of a North Korean attack on the South “would just be a hellacious environment,” said Peter Brookes, former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs, now the Heritage Foundation’s Asian studies director, in an interview with Stripes.

North Korea probably would bomb apartment complexes and other civilian targets only “in an act of desperation,” DeFreitas said. But as its ground forces invaded, “It would be very difficult for North Korea to maneuver south without killing a large number of noncombatants,” given “the urban sprawl of the Seoul area.” Korea’s geography dictates that the heaviest ground fighting would unfold in the west along a 75-mile tract from the Imjin River to the Chorwon Valley. The peninsula’s eastern part is mountainous, making it tough for the North’s tanks and other vehicles to maneuver east of the Chorwon Valley.

North Korea maintains the world’s third-largest ground force, with 1.2 million troops on active duty and another 5 million or more in reserve forces, according to unclassified USFK documents.

That includes a special operations force of more than 100,000. They’re believed to be elite, well-trained, disciplined, highly motivated and, despite the North’s food shortages and other problems, in good physical condition and morale, DeFreitas said.

“Their strategy would probably be to paralyze the rear areas of South Korea as much as they can, and they’ll be able to attack without warning,” said Richard Bush, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, in an interview with Stripes.

In comparison, as of mid-2002, South Korea had 683,000 active-duty servicemembers and 4.5 million reservists, USFK said. Nearly 38,000 U.S. troops are stationed on the peninsula. And Pacific Command reportedly has asked for 2,000 additional troops, long-range bombers and other assets in support of the peninsula.

But even if everything arrived in the Pacific this week, unclassified Army and CIA reports given to Congress show that the sheer weight of troops and weapons overwhelmingly would favor North Korea.

The North’s conventional war machine also includes massive artillery, a large missile arsenal able to hit any part of South Korea and reach Japan and beyond, more than 3,000 tanks and a submarine force of about 100, mostly midget vessels designed to mine South Korean ports and land special ops troops for commando raids, USFK has said.

‘Bombed into the Stone Age’

If North Korea invaded, officials said, the U.S. and South Korea immediately would unleash artillery counter-battery fire and launch missiles — all aimed at stopping the North’s drive above Seoul.

U.S. Air Force fighters and other aircraft would launch from Osan and Kunsan air bases in South Korea, mainland Japan and Okinawa, also emerging from the USS Kitty Hawk or other carriers in the region. South Korean aircraft would scramble from airfields around the peninsula.

“If they want to attack and kill American GIs by significant numbers, that would mean the end of their regime … they could be bombed into the Stone Age,” said Fei Ling Wang, associate professor of international affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology, in an interview with Stripes. Wang also taught international relations and East Asia politics at West Point from 1992-93.

If a North Korean first strike were to knock out U.S. and South Korean aircraft with missiles or artillery, carrier-based aircraft could be crucial in the early stages.

But it’s not going to be easy, warned another analyst.

“Sure, you can get through those barriers, but it takes time,” said Daniel Pinkston, adjunct professor of comparative national security policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif., and senior research associate at its Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“Even though people say, ‘In the end, the North Koreans would lose’ … in the end, the cost would be extremely high — impossibly high,” said Thomas Robinson, former professor of national security at Georgetown University and now president of American Asian Research Enterprises in McLean, Va., in an interview with Stripes.

Robinson summarizes the American strategy as “tripwire and escalation.”

U.S. troops’ tripwire role would be “to stand in the way of a North Korean invasion, to stand in the way enough to slow down the North Koreans” while other forces reach Korea — “and we’re talking about logistics and supply,” Robinson said.

“It takes a hell of a long time in terms of the initial very high level of destruction and war-fighting,” he said. “It takes a long time for those people — 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. That’s the big worry: that the 2nd Division would be called upon to do too many things.”

But those initial countermeasures are only part of the U.S.-South Korean response plan.

South Korea would mobilize almost 3 million personnel for military service. The United States would swell its force in South Korea to almost 700,000, including more than 120,000 Reserve and National Guard troops, according to unclassified USFK documents.

Several analysts say much of the North’s military hardware is of 1960s Soviet-era vintage, in questionable condition.

“Their equipment is degrading,” Gregg told Stripes.

“We don’t see any hard numbers as to how long” North Korea could fight a battle, DeFreitas said to Stripes, “but clearly, we believe less than 90 days.”

North Korea’s air force is also aging. Some planes, such as the MiG-15 fighter, date back five decades to the Korean War, according to USFK documents. USFK analysts have predicted that U.S. and South Korean forces would be able to obtain air superiority over the North’s tactical fighter jet fleet.

The wild cards

But all such projections are based on one assumption most analysts acknowledge may rest on quicksand: That a wartime North Korea would confine itself to conventional weapons.

Brookes warned of “the high potential for a chemical weapons environment.”

The North harbors the world’s third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons, which intelligence assessments put at about 5,000 metric tons of agents at its disposal, according to USFK. It’s also believed to have anthrax, sarin and nerve agents, USFK reports.

“Unclassified U.S. intelligence reports,” Cordesman wrote in a Dec. 30, 2002, article for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “state that North Korea has also mass-produced chemical weapons, including persistent nerve gases, since the 1980s.

“It is believed to have thousands of bombs, artillery shells, and multiple rocket launcher warheads that are chemically armed.”

Several analysts suggest that North Korea’s knowledge of the likely outcome of armed conflict might be the chief, and most effective, deterrent.

“I would tell you,” said Retired Army Gen. John H. Tilleli Jr., commander of U.S. Forces Korea from July 1996 to December 1999, “as someone who served there for a long period as the CINC, that I am very hopeful that we will never come to a conflict on the peninsula because … I believe that conflict and crisis is probably the last thing that anyone who serves there wants.”

— T.D. Flack and Jeremy Kirk contributed to this report.

U.S. Begins Deploying Upgraded M1A1 Abrams Tanks The Stars & Stripes stated on 7 Feb 2004 that dozens of high-tech U.S. M1A1 Abrams battle tanks had started arriving at Camp Casey to strengthen its war capability by replacing some of the division's older tanks.

Three versions of the Abrams tank are currently in service the original M1 model, dating from the early 1980s, and two newer versions, designated M1A1 and M1A2. The M1A1 series, produced from 1985 through 1993, replaced the M1's 105mm main gun with a 120mm gun and incorporated numerous other enhancements, including an improved suspension, a new turret, increased armor protection, and a nuclear-chemical-biological protection system. The 2d ID is replacing the M1A1 tanks that it received in 1995. The newer M1A2 series includes all of the M1A1 features plus a commander's independent thermal viewer, an independent commander's weapon station, position navigation equipment, and a digital data bus and radio interface unit providing a common picture among M1A2s on the battlefield.

Camp Casey gets first batch of high-tech Abrams tanks

By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, February 7, 2004

Dozens of high-tech, refurbished M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks have started arriving at Camp Casey to replace the 2nd Infantry Division's older tanks.

Tankers from the 2nd Battalion, 72nd Armored Regiment, Company A braved sub-zero temperatures at a Camp Casey railhead to unload one of several consignments of tanks from carriages Thursday.

Officials said safety was a priority during the unloading process, which involved driving 15 tanks along a line of carriages slightly narrower than the width of the vehicles' tracks, then maneuvering down a concrete ramp at the railhead.

Ramon Cruz, a civilian Defense Department employee from the Tank and Automotive Command in Fort Hood, Texas, is overseeing the vehicles' arrival.

The new tanks have the same armor package, capabilities for maneuvering and weapons range as the vehicles they are replacing but have had a host of high-tech features added, he said.

Refurbishment involved stripping the vehicles down to their turrets and chassis, then sending them through the assembly line at General Dynamics' Lima, Ohio, tank plant, Cruz said.

The tanks now have embedded diagnostic systems that can tell maintenance crews the causes of any problems that develop. The systems cut more than two hours from the time it took merely to set up the old diagnostic equipment, officials said.

The new tanks are also equipped with high-tech "Eyesafe" laser sites.

"The Eyesafe prevents a lot of accidents when it comes to firing the laser," Cruz said. "The old lasers were dangerous to people's eyes and could only be used at a designated laser firing range."

The Eyesafe laser still is dangerous if fired directly into a soldier's eye, but will not do damage when reflected off glass or metal, Cruz said.

The new tanks are powered by the same 1500-horsepower jet engines in the old models and in Iroquois (Huey) helicopters. But the engines, which use aviation fuel, are expected to last longer in the new tanks because digital systems slowly warm them up and cool them down to prevent damage during start-up and shut down.

"We're having better engine run times and better performance, and we're using less fuel than we did with the previous M1A1 models, which did three to five miles to the gallon," Cruz said.

Staff Sgt. Edison Bayas, a Company A tank commander, said electronics incorporated in the tanks will make working with them much different from working with the old models.

"The driving techniques are the same but it's easier for the tank commander, who has a computer display showing where his tank is and where the rest of the platoon is," he said.

"These tanks give us more lethal power. With the tanks we have now, we can do some damage to the enemy, but these will give us greater power," he said.

Maj. Bob Finnegan, 1st Brigade's logistics officer, supervised the tanks' arrival and said the vehicles will be "de-processed" at Camp Casey before being sent into the field.

"All the soldiers are really excited about getting new tanks," he said. The refurbished machines will be issued in three segments, he said: The 1st Battalion, 72nd Armor Regiment in June and July; the 4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment later in summer; and the 2nd Battalion, 72nd Armored Regiment in the first quarter of fiscal 2005.

"The M1A1 is the best tank in the world," he said. "It is very exciting getting updated and new models. It will improve the combat readiness and maintain the 'fight tonight' posture."

The division's old tanks, which arrived in 1995, will return to the United States, where they also may be refurbished or could be sent to a National Guard unit, Finnegan said.

Foal Eagle and RSOI South Korea and the United States stage their annual joint military exercises in March. The two regular exercises -- Foal Eagle and RSOI (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration) -- were to be held for one week from March 21-28. The largest annual exercise focused on a war with an adversary who is never named — but whose characteristics mirror those of North Korea. The RSOI portion focuses on rear-area security and how forces coming from outside South Korea would be integrated into the battle. It also covers logistics aspects of South Korean forces. U.S. and South Korean military leaders also review the overall operations plan for a conflict, according to the 2004 U.S. Forces Korea fact book.

The two exercises — at first done separately but combined in 2002 — tie field-training events with computer war simulations. Media will not be invited to cover activities; however, individual requests to cover the exercise will be considered, officials said. (See GlobalSecurity.org: Order of Battle for Updates.)

The North Korean army strongly urged South Korea and the United States to immediately cancel the joint military exercises. The demand was made in a telephone call by a spokesman for the Panmunjom Mission of the North Korean Army as an immediate response to an earlier notification by the Combined Forces Command (CFC) on their imminent drills. In past years, USFK has sought a lower profile for the exercise, so as to not disrupt relations between North and South Korea. Later the DPRK held a large rally in Pyongyang to denounce the exercises.

The USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) Five returned to Busan on 15 Mar for the joint military exercise. The vessel docked at Pier 8 of Busan port and was sure to boost the local economy, with the Sailors spending an average of five hundred dollars each during this port visit. (See Globalsecurity.org: Updates for current carrier location.)

Part of the Kitty Hawk's Carrier Group -- the USS O'Brien (422) and the USS John S. McCain (407) visited Inchon and held a briefing for Korean reporters to show off its AEGIS hardware, ship-to-ship Sea Sparrow missiles and its rapid-fire Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) Phalanx guns. The exercise is also part of the USFK PR blitz to show off the advanced hardware to the Korean press. It is obvious that the secondary purpose of the exercise is to convince the Koreans of their USFK lethality with its advanced systems -- which the ROK can't afford yet -- as well as show off the new concept of landing heavy armor closer to the DMZ. A few days later on 23 Mar the U.S. Navy announced that it would deploy Aegis destroyers to the East Sea (Sea of Japan).

U.S. Marines from Okinawa, mainland Japan and the United States offloaded equipment, including tanks and support vehicles, at the Pyongtaek port. They were practicing what would be a massive influx of equipment into South Korea during a conflict. (See U.S. Marines Land at Pyongtaek for First Time for Upcoming Exercises.)

The USFK said about 8,500 U.S. servicemembers were involved in the Foal Eagle and RSOI. 5,500 of them came from outside the South Korean peninsula. South Korea’s Defense Ministry declined to say how many South Korean servicemembers took part.

Combined Forces Command (CFC) said on 25 Mar that about 1,000 U.S. Marines were engaged in a large-scale field maneuver exercise with R.O.K. Marines and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division near the DMZ. The CFC said the two week-long exercise, which focuses on maneuver tactics, had been going on since March 15 in accordance with the Korean Integrated Training Program (KITP). US and ROK marines engaged in live-fire training close to the DMZ. The allies have launched standard live-fire operations in Uncheon, 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the DMZ. The training exercise, which focuses on "maneuver tactics," involves about 1,000 US marines, they said, refusing to disclose the number of ROK marines taking part. The US military newspaper Stars and Stripes said the US marines have brought in new equipment such as SMART-T, a communications system that allows secure voice and data communications. "This year we have the most marines on this peninsula since 1994, and that's with a good amount of our marines deployed to the Gulf and Afghanistan." Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson, commander of the Marine Forces Pacific, was quoted as saying. The drill in Uncheon is part of massive US-South Korea war games that began on Monday.

It stressed that this is the tenth year in a row that the exercise -- which is conducted twice a year -- has been held, and there is no difference from previous exercises in terms of size and region of deployment. CFC also said that the RSOI, Foal Eagle and Freedom Banner exercises are all taking place simultaneously, with about 5,000 U.S. Marines taking part in total.

Apart from the Marines, there are about 3,000 additional American soldiers who have been brought from the U.S. mainland and the Pacific region to participate in the RSOI and Foal Eagle exercises. CFC public affairs officer Lt. Col. MaryAnn Cummings said the training exercises, which places priority on preventive defense, are for developing skills required to defend South Korea from outside invasion

Thousands of South Korean and U.S. Marines conducted a joint amphibious landing exercise at the port city of Pohang as part of Foal Eagle and RSOI on March 26. With South Korean and U.S. officers overseeing the drill, the South Korean 7th regiment 1st division, the U.S. 31st Marine expedition, the combined commanding squadron and both the Marine and Air Forces are to join in this exercise. AV-8 Harrier aircraft, helicopters, large infantry landing warships, landing craft air cushions (LCACs) and U.S. Special Forces participated in the exercise. Activists last year attempted to disrupt the exercises during the amphibious landings but never got to the beach and were escorted away by National Police units. This year the police is again guarding the Korea-U.S. joint training at Pohang, Kyungbuk, from the protests of The Union of Korea College Students.

Pohang Landing Foal Eagle (25 Mar 04)

At Osan AB, the 51st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron practiced combat quick-turns with hot-pit refuelings turning aircraft for simulated combat missions. The Stars and Stripes had the story on 25 Mar.

North and U.S. Agree to Continue MIA Search North Korea and the United States have recently agreed to hold five rounds of joint excavation work this year to unearth remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War. Recovery efforts will be made simultaneously at two different places -- Unsan, a town located 100 kilometers north of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, and Changjin in South Hamgyong Province -- from late April through November.

U.S. Alters Land Mine Policy According to the Jane's Defence Weekly on 4 Mar 2004, the US announced on 27 February that it would continue to use some land mines indefinitely and would not sign an international treaty outlawing the weapons, reversing the position of the previous administration. The Bush administration said it would allow the military to continue to use 'smart' land mines, which can be deactivated when a conflict is over.

The Bush administration also said it would continue to use the more traditional persistent land mines until 2010 on the Korean peninsula, rather than 2006 as was the policy of former US President Bill Clinton. The US military favors keeping land mines, especially in South Korea, where it maintains large stockpiles in the event of a North Korean invasion.

However, the U.S. has agreed to abandon the use of persistent anti-tank mines, a policy which goes beyond the requirements of the Ottawa Convention, which bans all mines that explode automatically on proximity, presence or contact of a person. The US said the anti-tank mine ban is the first of its kind in the world. Within a year all land mines that the US uses will include sufficient iron to be detectable by ordinary metal detectors, and from now until 2010 the use of any persistent anti-tank land mines will require special presidential authorization. The US will only use persistent anti-personnel mines in South Korea.

Rift in Intelligence Sharing between ROK and US Reported According to the Christian Science Monitor on 11 Mar 2004, the U.S. military intelligence community is "frustrated in its attempts to obtain information on North Korea - including access to defectors - from the South's National Intelligence Service." Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy caused the present difficulties by gagging defectors from making embarrassing comments on the North. Supposedly, "defectors have had to keep a low-profile in South Korea, partly due to the protectiveness of South Korean officials concerned with offending the North and giving ammunition to US hawks."

While the US has high-tech abilities through satellites to monitor North Korea, South Korea has strength in human intelligence gleaned from defectors. The problem is the Koreans are reluctant to share the information extracted or don't provide everything. Ready access to defectors gives South Korean analysts a better sense of the validity of what they are told and the ROK is reluctant to share its intelligence. Fast, complete access to defectors is vital to the U.S. intelligence community in light of how little the CIA knows about the extent of Pyongyang's nuclear programs, but the access is being denied. The ROK relies almost exclusively on US intelligence information from satellite monitoring, but its intelligence in not reciprocal.

The case of Mr. Hwang, who was a North Korean party secretary before defecting seven years ago is at the heart of the current problems. Hwang and a top aide who defected with him arrived in Seoul from Beijing, where they had sought refuge in the South Korean Embassy, several months before Kim Dae Jung's election in December 1997. Although the government was conservative until Kim's inauguration in February 1998, CIA officials had to wait several months before getting to see Hwang, and they never had the steady access they would have liked. Then, when a North Korean officer in charge of a missile unit and a former senior official at North Korea's Nuclear Research Institute came to South Korea in 2003, the ROK hid them in a rural area.

When a North Korean defector three years ago told that the North had been pursuing a centrifuge enrichment program needed to process highly enriched uranium for the core of nuclear warheads, the information was far from complete. The location of the production plant and related facilities were apparently not identified.

Behind an appearance of cooperation with the US in negotiations, South Korean officials have repeatedly expressed concern about the danger of the "hard-line" US response. They question whether the uranium program has gone far and warn there's no way, short of war, of uncovering all the sites, a number which are hidden in caves scattered throughout the North. As a result, information may be harder to come by than ever.

Actually the trust between the countries hasn't been great in recent years. A few years back the ROK military attache received secrets from a Korean -- a naturalized U.S. citizen -- in the Pentagon. So much for trust amongst allies. (SITE NOTE: This was Robert Kim, a Korean-American who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for espionage. He passed classified information on the 1996 Submarine incursion in Korea to the ROK Military Attache. Kim was released in 2004.)

U.S. Missile System to Shield Japanese Coast The perceived threat from North Korea's missile capabilities caused Japan to do a turnabout and support the Missile Defense Shield that it had put on a hold.

On 23 Mar, the U.S. Navy Secretary Gordon England announced in Washington that the U.S. Navy will deploy an Aegis-equipped destroyer off the east coast this September to deter possible attacks from North Korea and other countries. England said the destroyer - equipped to track potential enemy missiles - would remain in the Sea of Japan "on a virtually continuous basis" as "part of the President's directive to accelerate the fielding of a ballistic missile defence operational capability." Chris Taylor, spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency (MDA), said a total of seven Navy destroyers - including the one in the Sea of Japan - would be equipped with long-range missile tracking and surveillance capability by the end of 2004. The deployment is a part of a U.S. plan to build a Missile Defense System (MDS) aimed at guarding Japan's people and allies against enemy missile attacks -- and possibly to convince the ROK to subscribe to the MDS.

The Asahi Shimbun (Japan) on 29 Mar 04 reported that the US Defense Department planned to deploy surface-to-air missiles in waters off Japan by the end of next year. The move was aimed to deter the DPRK from developing ballistic missiles targeting the country. The interceptor missile system, known as the standard missile 3 (SM3) system, would likely be mounted on an Aegis-equipped destroyer scheduled to be dispatched to the Sea of Japan by the end of September. According to the Pentagon source, the Defense Department planned to equip 10 Aegis missile-launch detecting destroyers with the SM3s by the end of 2005. The Japanese government, meanwhile, had informed the US of its own plan to deploy Patriot missile systems on the ground and SM3 systems on its own Aegis destroyer.

Though the Pentagon also said that the ROK plans to put Patriot systems into place, it failed to mention that the PAC-3 systems are on-order but NOT funded.

Donga Ilbo on 6 Apr 2004 reported that the US was planning to send an Aegis destroyer, which plays a pivotal role they plays in organizing the MDS, to the East Sea of Korea this September. This dispatch was interpreted by the ROK as a restraining effort against the DPRK, which already owns missiles, as well as beefing up the front line of a missile defense system for Japan. Quoting the remarks of US Admiral Gordon England on April 5, Defense News, a U.S. military magazine, that "this warship will detect and trace the movement and flight of missiles in order to mutually exchange information about those missiles with the Army as part of a multi-layer defense system."

The Aegis destroyer weighs 9,000 tons and is equipped with a missile-tracing radar system and an interceptor missile system. The US government has disclosed that they will dispatch a missile interceptor system to Alaska this autumn in accordance with their idea of missile defense system organization, in order to take countermeasures against the intimidation of the DPRK, together with the Aegis warship dispatched to the East Sea. The dispatch of warship is regarded as the first level of preparation in a three-step maritime defense plan which was urged by US President George W. Bush about two years ago.

According to the Space Daily on 13 May 2004: "On 5 May 2004, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Japan of SM-3 Block 1A Standard Missiles as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $725 million. The Government of Japan has requested a possible sale of nine SM-3 Block 1A Standard missiles with MK 21 Mod 2 canisters, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) upgrades to one AEGIS Weapon System, AEGIS BMD Vertical Launch System ORDALTs, containers, spare and repair parts, supply support, U.S. Government and contractor technical assistance and other related elements of logistics support. The estimated cost is $725 million.

This proposed sale is consistent with these U.S. objectives and with the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not affect the basic military balance in the region.

Japan will use the Standard missiles to update older or less reliable missiles currently in the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) fleet. The AEGIS Weapon System and Standard missiles will be used on JMSDF ships. The purchaser, who already has missiles in its inventory, will have no difficulty absorbing these additional missiles.

The principal contractors will be: Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems of Moorestown, New Jersey; Raytheon Company of Andover, Massachusetts; and Raytheon Company in Tucson, Arizona. There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale. Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of any additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to Japan. There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale. This notice of a potential sale is required by law; it does not mean that the sale has been concluded.

APRIL 2004