Japan Tests Potential Missile Defense Sites

Japan has completed its first tests of sites that could house Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missile defenses in Tokyo, Japanese Defense Ministry officials said today (see GSN, Dec. 21).

PAC-3 units were deployed without interceptors overnight to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden and the Ichigaya military base.  Their task was to determine if local physical features and electronic noise would allow interceptor missiles to be fired accurately from the sites, the Associated Press reported.  The Defense Ministry would not discuss the findings.

The sites are both within miles of Japan’s governmental hub, the country’s Imperial Palace and Tokyo’s largest business and entertainment districts.

While the military has already placed two PAC-3 units to the east and west of the city, their interceptors do not have the range to reach a ballistic missile headed toward central Tokyo.

Japan is expected to place PAC-3 missile defense units at nine additional bases by March 2011 (Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Jan. 15).

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