Missiles spur pre-emptive strike debate in Japan

TOKYO — Japan is debating whether to develop a limited preemptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles — ideas that were anathema in the country before the North Korea missile threat. With revisions to Japan’s defense plans, hawks are accelerating the moves, and defense experts say Japan should consider them.

After being on the back burner in the ruling party for decades, a possibility of pre-emptive strike was formally proposed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by his party’s missile defense panel in March, prompting parliamentary debate, though somewhat lost steam as Abe apparently avoided the divisive topic after seeing support ratings for his scandalladen government plunge.

North Korea’s test-firing Tuesday of a missile, which flew over Japan and landed in the northern Pacific Ocean, has intensified fear and reignited the debate.

“Should we possess pre-emptive strike capability?” liberalleaning Mainichi newspaper asked the following day. “But isn’t it too reckless to jump to discuss a ‘get them before they get you’ approach?”

Japan has a two-step missile defense system. First, Standard Missile-3 interceptors on Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan would shoot down projectiles mid-flight and if that fails, surface-to-air PAC-3s would intercept them from within a 12-mile range. Technically, the setup can handle falling debris or missiles heading to Japan, but it’s not good enough for missiles on a high-lofted trajectory, those with multiple warheads or simultaneous multiple attacks, experts say.