Japan Plans to Counter North Korea with long-range missiles
Posted [relativedate] at [relativetime time_format=”H:i”]
With a rising Military threat from North Korea, Japan is making all plans to purchase aggressive air to surface missiles. On Friday, the Japanese defense minister spoke about a move that is likely to stir debate over its decade’s long pacifist policy. Itsunori Onodera, the defense minister proposes to request a special budget for the fiscal year which starts from April 2018 to purchase long-range cruise missiles installed on fighter jets.
It also has plans to purchase joint Strike Missiles with a range of some 500 kilometers from Norway’s Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, reports said.
Though there are high chances for controversy to come up, as Tokyo has always maintained an exclusively defense-oriented policy that bans the use of force as a means of settling international disagreements. But Mr. Onodera asserted his ministry will continue to uphold the policy. He told reporters, that they will introduce them only as a stand-off missiles that allow us to handle our enemies from outside the range of threats.
Japan so far has restricted its military policy, and it mainly depends on the US to attack any enemy territory under the Japan-US security coalition.
Though the US has always offered assurance to support Japan, recently during White House campaign Donald Trump had caused anxiety suggesting its allies like Japan need to do more to defend themselves.