English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

7 answers

South Korea? No, unless the United State has some there

Japan? Yes, maybe even better

2006-10-13 20:12:17 · answer #1 · answered by Taco 3 · 0 0

Don't beleive the hype !
Most Scuds evaded any interception from patriot missiles...
The reason the damage from Scud missiles was lower than anticipated was due to the terrible poor guidance system in the Scud, most went way off target and hit empty ground...

"The results of these studies are disturbing. They suggest that the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero."

Any way, any nuclear weapon woild more likely be delivered by a missile more akin to an ICBM, higher altitude and greater speed, much more difficult than a lazy sloppy Scud !

Regarding taking down a ballisitc missile:
There are only eleven ground-based interceptors—nine fielded in Alaska and two in California—capable of intercepting long-range missiles. According the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. General Henry A. Obering, in his March 9, 2006, testimony before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, the Navy is seeking to field up to 20 Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors on four Aegis ships by the end of this year. These missiles, however, are currently designed to counter medium-range missiles.

2006-10-13 23:03:53 · answer #2 · answered by skyrine_gtr 2 · 0 0

It is very doubtful if DPRK has any interest in launching a missile, or invading anybody. The best use for Kim Il Jongs nukes as a passive doomsday device in case he is invaded or as a bargaining chip. Kim Il Jong wants western trade links, fuel, Agricultural support, his international banking rights restored etc. South Korea has about 200,000 reserve and about 60,000 standing army, North Korea has the same China just moved about the same size army into Manchuria just in case anything happens. The real danger is if USA just keeps increasing the restrictions on N. K. trying to collapse their economy more. If N.K. collapses Everybody around will be flooded with refugees.
Also remember that the Russians would not welcome China in that area because of the risk of being cut off from the Pacific Ocean and China would never allow USA or Russia that close to Manchuria and her capitol cities. China has been through that before. All the world powers except India are faced off over that poor tiny country.

2006-10-13 20:30:29 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

I know the United States has systems in place to protect both of them. I do not think either the South Korean or Japanese military has their own systems.

2006-10-13 20:18:34 · answer #4 · answered by beckychr007 6 · 0 0

In case of SK, i'd worry more about canons. NK has 7000 of them aimed at Seoul.

2006-10-13 20:21:49 · answer #5 · answered by luosechi 駱士基 6 · 0 0

they have scuds

2006-10-15 13:19:36 · answer #6 · answered by acid tongue 7 · 0 0

Japan and SK both of two country has Nuclear weapons. So i think they are not going to do any counter intercept.

But read this aslo>.......................
In the fall of 1940, the Japanese army concluded that constructing an atomic bomb was indeed feasible. The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, or Rikken, was assigned the project under the direction of Yoshio Nishina. The Japanese Navy was also diligently working to create its own "superbomb" under a project was dubbed F-Go, headed by Bunsaku Arakatsu at the end of World War II. The F-Go program [or No. F, for fission] began at Kyoto in 1942. However, the military commitment wasn't backed with adequate resources, and the Japanese effort to an atomic bomb had made little progress by the end of the war.

Japan's nuclear efforts were disrupted in April 1945 when a B-29 raid damaged Nishina's thermal diffusion separation apparatus. Some reports claim the Japanese subsequently moved their atomic operations Konan [Hungnam, now part of North Korea]. The Japanese may have used this facility at for making small quantities of heavy water. The Japanese plant was captured by Soviet troops at war's end, and some reports claim that the output of the Hungnam plant was collected every other month by Soviet submarines.

There are indications that Japan had a more sizable program than is commonly understood, and that there was close cooperation among the Axis powers, including a secretive exchange of war materiel. The German submarine U-234, which surrendered to US forces in May 1945, was found to be carrying 560 kilograms of Uranium oxide destined for Japan's own atomic program. The oxide contained about 3.5 kilograms of the isotope U-235, which would have been about a fifth of the total U-235 needed to make one bomb. After Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, the occupying US Army found five Japanese cyclotrons, which could be used to separate fissionable material from ordinary uranium. The Americans smashed the cyclotrons and dumped them into Tokyo Harbor.

Although possession of nuclear weapons is not forbidden in the constitution, Japan, as the only nation to experience the devastation of atomic attack, early expressed its abhorrence of nuclear arms and determined never to acquire them. The Basic Atomic Energy Law of 1956 limits research, development, and utilization of nuclear power to peaceful uses, and beginning in 1956, national policy has embodied "three non-nuclear principles"--forbidding the nation to possess or manufacture nuclear weapons or to allow them to be introduced into the nation. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato made this pledge - known as the Three Non-Nuclear Principles - on February 5, 1968. The notion was formalized by the Japanese Diet on November 24, 1971. In 1976 Japan ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 1968) and reiterated its intention never to "develop, use, or allow the transportation of nuclear weapons through its territory."

Japan lacks significant domestic sources of energy except coal and must import substantial amounts of crude oil, natural gas, and other energy resources, including uranium. Japan's nuclear output nearly doubled between 1985 and 1996, as Japan attempted to move away from dependence on oil following the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The Japanese Government is committed to nuclear power development, but several accidents in recent years have aroused public concern. During the past few years, public opposition to Japan's nuclear power program has increased in reaction to a series of accidents at Japanese nuclear plants, including a March 1997 fire and explosion at the Tokai-mura reprocessing plant. Other problems for Japan's nuclear power program have included rising costs of nuclear reactors and fuel, the huge investments necessary for fuel enrichment and reprocessing plants, several reactor failures, and the question of nuclear waste disposal. Regardless, Japan plans to increase the proportion of electricity generated from nuclear to 42% by 2010. Japan ranks third worldwide in installed nuclear capacity, behind the United States and France.

To enhance its energy security, the government advocates uranium and plutonium recovery through reprocessing of spent fuel. The Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) operates a reprocessing plant with an annual capacity of 90 tons but a larger reprocessing plant, Rokkasho-Mura, with a capacity of 800 tons per year, planned for 2003, is under construction. Reprocessing is expensive and costs can quickly rise with new safety requirements and the development of new technologies. Estimated in 1993 to cost about $8 billion, a more recent estimate for Rokkasho-Mura places the total at $15 billion. Japan also is interested in recycling recovered plutonium. In 1999, Japan began, in two prefectures, a controversial mixed-oxide utilization plan, which involves burning a highly toxic mix of plutonium and uranium on a commercial scale.

The reprocessing plant at Tokai in Ibaragi has been reprocessing spent fuel since 1981, though its operation was temporarily halted by a fire and explosion in March 1997. A commercial-size reprocessing plant has been under construction since 1993 at Rokkasho in Aomori prefecture. The Recycle Equipment Test Facility [RETF] is designed to reprocess plutonium produced in Monju and Joyo, Japan's two fast breeder reactors. Approval for construction was given by the Science and Technology Agency and announced on 13 December 1994. Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL) has announced that initial operation of the reprocessing plant currently being constructed in Rokkasho-mura, Aomori Prefecture has been delayed to July 2005. The previous plan called for operations to begin in January 2003. With a large store of plutonium, Japan mainly relies on Britain and France to recover plutonium from nuclear waste.

Weapon-grade plutonium is nearly pure plutonium 239, whereas the plutonium in commercial fuel is much lower in plutonium 239 and higher in the isotopes that are undesirable for weapons use. This, however, is not a crucial difference, since all plutonium can be used in weapons. The US nuclear weapons arsenal does not utilize commercial (reactor grade) plutonium from spent fuel. Tests were completed, however, to confirm that reactor grade plutonium could be used in a nuclear explosive and is therefore a nonproliferation concern.

Tokyo pledged in 1991 that it would adhere to the principle of not retaining surplus plutonium. Since 1994 the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) has published annual inventories of separated plutonium. As of December 1995, the total inventory of separated plutonium managed by Japan was 16.1 tons, with 4.7 tons in Japan and 11.4 tons in Europe. By 2010, the amount of plutonium being stockpiled in Europe will have mounted to 45 tons. A nuclear bomb similar to the one exploded in Nagasaki can be made with seven to eight kg of plutonium.

Japan's small size, its geographically concentrated industry, and the close proximity of potentially hostile powers all render the country vulnerable to a nuclear strike. North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons coupled with its capability to target Japan with any weapon that it developed, is a matter of great concern to Japanese military strategists. Events on the Asian mainland could also affect Japan. From the early 1970s, China possessed a nuclear force capable of striking Japan.

Having renounced war, the possession of war potential, the right of belligerency, and the possession of nuclear weaponry, it held the view that it should possess only the minimum defense necessary to face external threats. The Japanese government values its close relations with the United States, and it remains dependent on the United States nuclear umbrella.

During the Sato cabinet in the 1960's, it is reported that Japan secretly studied the development of nuclear weapons. On 17 June 1974, Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata told reporters that "it's certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons but has not made them." This remark aroused widespread concern in the international media at that time.

Japan's nuclear power program based on reprocessed plutonium has aroused widespread suspicion that Japan is secretly planning to develop nuclear weapons. Japan's nuclear technology and ambiguous nuclear inclinations have provided a considerable nuclear potential, becoming a "paranuclear state." Japan would not have material or technological difficulties in making nuclear weapons. Japan has the raw materials, technology, and capital for developing nuclear weapons. Japan could possibly produce functional nuclear weapons in as little as a year's time. On the strength of its nuclear industry, and its stockpile of weapons-useable plutonium, Japan in some respects considers itself, and is treated by others as, as a virtual nuclear weapons state.

2006-10-13 20:21:46 · answer #7 · answered by Saket K 2 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers