North Korea's Launch Puts Pressure on U.S. Missile Defense
- U.S. system showed success in May, under controlled conditions
- Missile defense system isn’t a ‘get out of jail’ card: analyst
Amb. Haley Says North Korea Test Is Military Escalation
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Kim Jong Un’s test of an ICBM capable of striking the U.S. mainland is putting renewed pressure on a U.S. missile defense system racing to keep up with North Korea’s quickly evolving military threat.
While the U.S. “completely obliterated” a mock intercontinental ballistic missile in a late May test of its $36 billion ground-based defense system, according to the Missile Defense Agency, outside analysts call those tests choreographed events that don’t reflect real-world scenarios. That would require knocking down an unexpected launch, with a warhead possibly masked by sophisticated decoys launched under adverse conditions.