north korea | DMZ Hawai'i/Aloha 'Aina

Pearl Harbor, Part II?

Post Date August 17, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Good analysis of the North Korea crisis.

Pearl Harbor, Part II?

by JOHN FEFFER | Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The war in Afghanistan is ugly. The conflict in Iraq is still seething. The prospect of Pakistan’s collapse is terrifying.

But the real nightmare scenario, or so the media headlines suggest, involves North Korea. Its leader is wacko. It’s adding to its nuclear arsenal. It’s making preparations for a missile launch aimed at Hawaii.

The Japanese attacked us 68 years ago. The Pentagon is bracing for Pearl Harbor, part II. This is serious stuff. The Taliban might be crazy, but they don’t have nukes and we don’t expect them to bomb Waikiki any time soon.

Never fear: the Obama administration has crafted a robust response to North Korea. We pushed through a UN resolution, with Chinese and Russian support, that ups the sanctions against Pyongyang and authorizes the naval interdiction of North Korean vessels suspected of delivering weapons or other suspicious materials. We sat down with South Korean leader Lee Myung-bak and reaffirmed our willingness to retaliate with nuclear weapons if the South is attacked. We’ve beefed up our defenses in Hawaii. We’re currently tailing a North Korean ship as it heads toward Burma.

In his eagerness to show that he has the strength of will to confront a nuclear bully, President Barack Obama hopes to dispel any illusions – among conservatives here, among the leadership in North Korea – that he’s a “cut-and-run” kind of guy. He can multitask. He can talk and prepare for war at the same time. This guy can take care of pesky flies like North Korea.

I’m not sure who’s giving the president his advice on North Korea. But it’s all wrong. His show of “resolve” has only made matters worse.

Myth 1: North Korea is about to attack Hawaii: North Korea has two long-range missiles, the Taepodong-1 and the Taepodong-2. The first, likely used only for satellite launches, can maybe go 2,500 miles. But it’s never been successfully tested. The Taepondong-2 maybe could go about 3,700 miles. But it too has failed in its two tests: a quick fizzle in 2006 and a failure in the third stage this last April. Even if Pyongyang gets everything right for a possible July 4 test, it’s 4,500 miles between Pyongyang and Honolulu. As for putting a nuclear warhead on the top of it, North Korea has shown no evidence that it has the necessary miniaturization technology.

Myth #2: North Korea is a military threat: North Korea has a lot of people in uniform, and its artillery can cause horrific damage to Seoul. But North Korea spends about half a billion dollars a year on its military. South Korea alone spends 40 times that amount. And the United States spends 1,000 times more. Neither China nor Russia would support any North Korean military action. Militarily speaking, North Korea is a kamikaze country. It can inflict damage, but only in a suicide attack and only close to home.

Myth 3: We really showed them at the UN: The Security Council statement in April and the resolution in June certainly communicated international anger at North Korea’s rocket and nuclear tests. But we overreacted to the April launch. We should have treated it as a satellite launch and pressed forward with negotiations. Instead, North Korea responded to our fierce words by upping the ante and conducting a second nuclear test. The UN statement was as satisfying as hitting a problem with a baseball bat – except that the problem in this case was a hornet’s nest. The more recent resolution, meanwhile, represents a dangerous escalation: a confrontation at sea might trigger a much larger conflict.

Myth 4: Kim Jong Il is crazy and North Korea is an unpredictable rogue state: Actually, North Korean reactions have been quite predictable and, at least within the North Korean context, rational. Pyongyang was unhappy with the course of negotiations and its relative lack of priority on Obama’s to-do list. Rocket launches and nuclear tests have yielded both attention and concessions in the past, so they went with what works. And they telegraphed their moves well in advance. The leader of North Korea runs a brutal state and a mind-numbing personality cult. And North Korea’s official statements often sound like the scripts from bad horror movies. But Kim Jong Il worked out shrewd deals in the past – with the Clinton and Bush administrations, with the Kim Dae-Jung and Roh-Moo Hyun governments in South Korea, and even with Junichiro Koizumi in Japan back in 2002. If he’s mad, there’s a method in his madness.

We are retracing the same steps as 1993-1994, a path of escalation that nearly led to war. As I write in The Obama-Lee Summit: Dangerous Consensus?, “North Korea, with so little to lose, is the master of brinksmanship. It is not wise to enter into a tit-for-tat match with such a country. At this point, more important than finding common ground between the United States and South Korea is establishing common ground between North Korea and the rest of the world. By all means, Washington and Seoul should coordinate policy. But they should also keep their eyes on the prize: resolving the current crisis with North Korea without resorting to force.”

The United States should focus on nuclear nonproliferation, urges Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Wade Huntley, and make sure North Korea doesn’t cross that red line. In the meantime, Washington should continue taking steps toward nuclear abolition. “Complete nuclear abolition need not be fully achieved in order to realize the constitution of a global security order that eliminates all threats of nuclear conflict,” he writes in Dealing with North Korea’s Tests. “And as the rest of this community becomes warmer, it will become increasingly tempting for North Korea to come in out of the cold.”

It’s definitely frustrating to negotiate with North Korea. And many respected analysts have serious doubts as to whether Pyongyang will ever give up its nuclear weapons. But when we were talking seriously with North Korea, it kept its plutonium program frozen (Clinton) or began dismantling it (Bush), and its long-range missile program was still rudimentary. That beats war every time. In 1994, former President Jimmy Carter helped avert confrontation by visiting Pyongyang and working out a compromise. Maybe the Man from Plains can get on the plane again. The escalation must stop: It’s time to talk.

Source: http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/6210

More fireworks over Waikiki than from North Korea

Post Date July 05, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Looks like the network reporter got a nice trip to Hawai’i to cover…well, nothing. I hope she at least got to see some fireworks and enjoy the south swell. Sen. Inouye got to talk tough and to shake his fist at Kim Jong-il – “he is asking for trouble.” Meanwhile the U.S. prepares to launch a Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg on August 23. Should we run for cover?

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North Korea Fires Seven Ballistic Missles

Written by Teri Okita, CBS News, Honolulu.

July 04, 2009 04:30 PM

North Korea chose America’s July 4th holiday weekend to fire off its largest barrage of ballistic missiles in three years.

The test-firings came amid recent threats that Pyongyang would aim a missile towards Hawaii. It’s a picture-perfect July 4th in Hawaii. Few are worried about North Korea’s threat to fire a long-range missile here over the holiday weekend. The head of the US Pacific Command says there’s no cause for alarm.

“We’re well prepared to defend American citizens and defend American property,” said Commander Keating, U.S. Pacific Command.

Forty-Four-hundred miles away from the islands, North Korea fired off seven ballistic missiles from its eastern shore Saturday, in violation of a United Nations Security council resolution. Some of the weapons appear to be short-range Scuds, which, along with medium and long-range missiles, the North is banned from using. Experts don’t believe Pyongyang has the capability to hit Hawaii with a long-range missile, yet.

There’s no reason for us to be alarmed about the demonstrations of firepower North Korea’s using, but there is reason for concern for their blatant disregard for normal, accepted standards of behavior,” said Commander Keating, U.S. Pacific Command.

Over the last week, the U.S. has responded to North Korea’s threat by beefing up anti-missile defenses here in Hawaii, at sea, and on the U.S. mainland.

South Korea and Japan condemned the symbolic July 4th launches as a “provocative” act. Some say this was President Kim Jong-il’s way of flaunting his country’s military might while protesting recent U-N sanctions. But Hawaii’s senior Senator says it takes more than flexing muscle.

“I hope that Kim Jong-il realizes that because if he fires a long-range one, then he is asking for trouble,” said Senator Daniel Inouye.

Some reports say North Korea is winding down its launch activities for now, but there’s no indication they’ll re-engage in diplomatic discussions.

Source: http://kgmb9.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18878&Itemid=40

"Hawai'i is a pawn in a chess game"

Post Date June 23, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

June 23, 2009

Hawaiians Shrug Off Missile Threat

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

HONOLULU – Hawaii has long lived with the threat of wipeout, whether by tsunami, volcano or foreign invader.

Now the Obama administration says North Korea could launch a ballistic missile in the state’s direction – possibly around the Fourth of July, according to the Japanese news media – prompting the United States military to strengthen defenses here.

Antimissile interceptors are in place, the Defense Department said, and Hawaiians watched the other day as a giant, towering radar commonly known as the golf ball set out to sea from the base where it is normally moored.

But if lifelong residents like Gerald Aikau are on any state of alert, it would be the one telling him that his octopus, caught in the waters here with a spear and his bare hands, is overcooked.

“What are you going to do?” Mr. Aikau, 34, a commercial painter, said as he proudly grilled his catch at a beachfront park. “You are going to go sometime, whether it’s on a wave, or a missile, or your buddy knocking you down and you hit your head.”

Vulnerability, and a certain fatalism about it, are part of the fabric of life in this archipelago, 2,500 miles from the mainland and, as many residents seem to have memorized since the Obama administration raised the alarm last week, 4,500 miles from North Korea.

People took comfort in the heavy, year-round military presence provided by several bases here but also wondered if it made the state more of a target.

In an interview Monday on CBS’s “Early Show,” President Obama, who was born and spent much of his youth here, said, “Our military is fully prepared for any contingencies” regarding North Korea.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced Thursday that the military had deployed ground-based interceptors and sea-based radar to help deflect any long-range missile from North Korea. Calls to Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, were referred to Maj. Gen. Robert G. F. Lee, the director of the State Department of Defense, who suggested that the threat was more saber-rattling from North Korea. He questioned whether its missiles had the technological capacity to go very far, but just the same, he said, the state was ready for hostile action.

“Our military assets should be able to protect us,” said General Lee, whose duties include civil defense. “We, like all states, are prepared for natural disasters down to terrorism.”

He said the state’s disaster sirens were working, and residents, as always, were advised to keep a three-day supply of food, water, medicine and other essentials in stock.

“Out here by ourselves, we have to be a little more prepared, just in case help does not get here quickly from the mainland,” he said.

Of course, the specter of Pearl Harbor still figures prominently here, as well as the cat-and-mouse of cold war maneuverings off the coast, including the mysterious loss of a Soviet ballistic-missile submarine 750 miles northwest of Oahu in 1968.

“We are first strike from Asia,” said State Representative Joseph M. Souki, 76, a Democrat, who still remembers the wave of anxiety that swept his neighborhood on Maui as Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. “It’s not like we are in Iowa.”

Still, he said, “more than likely nothing is going to happen.”

“Hawaii is like a pawn in a chess game,” he added.

The state can ill afford anything approximating a calamity.

The recession has been blamed for a nearly 11 percent drop in the number of visitors here last year compared with the year before. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in May reached 7.4 percent, up from 6.9 percent in April and the highest in three decades.

The tourists that did come carried on as usual, taking surfing lessons, strolling Waikiki Beach and reflecting at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, where a park includes a display of old Polaris submarine-launched missiles.

“Send one of these babies up,” Clifton Wannaker, 45, an accountant from South Dakota, said when told of the North Korean threat. He knocked on the missile’s skin for good measure.

Standing at the shoreline in view of the memorial, Steve Brecheen, 54, a pharmacist from Oklahoma City, seemed a bit more unnerved.

“North Korea seems the most unstable government as far as a threat to the U.S. is concerned,” Mr. Brecheen said.

He motioned to the memorial, which sits over the remains of the battleship sunk by the Japanese in the Pearl Harbor attack.

“In 1941, some of these people didn’t think the Japanese were an extreme threat, and they got their minds changed pretty quickly,” he said.

But among Hawaiians, skepticism is mixed with annoyance and even anger that their state, hypothetically at least, could be a testing ground.

“I think they would be stupid to do that test,” said Misioka Tauiliili, 39, a delivery truck driver, taking in the placid scene at a city beach near Waikiki. “The U.S. should go out there and shake them.”

By that he meant the United States perhaps firing its own rockets in North Korea’s direction, “to test them.”

Mark N. Brown, 49, an artist painting nearby, was less bellicose. He said he took comfort in the steps the military had taken and remained concerned that an act of aggression by North Korea would lead to war.

But, with a wry smile, he added that a neighboring island, far less populated but a bit closer to North Korea, would probably take the hit.

“It would hit Kauai,” he said. “We are on Oahu.”

Mele Connor, 55, a lifelong Hawaiian shopping with visitors from the mainland at a clothing store in Waikiki, laughed off the threat.

“After North Korea, it will be somebody else,” she said. “They know Obama is from here, so they want something. Everybody wants something from our pretty little islands.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23hawaii.html?pagewanted=print

U.S. fortifies Hawaii to meet threat from N. Korea? What about threat from U.S.?

Post Date June 20, 2009

Comments 1 Comment

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

JUNE 19, 2009

U.S. Fortifies Hawaii to Meet Threat From Korea

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is moving ground-to-air missile defenses to Hawaii as tensions escalate between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea’s recent moves to restart its nuclear-weapon program and resume test-firing long-range missiles.

In anticipation of a North Korean missile test, the U.S. is positioning off Hawaii a floating radar, like this one shown in a 2005 Boeing photo.
Associated Press
Mr. Gates told reporters that the U.S. is positioning a sophisticated floating radar array in the ocean around Hawaii to track an incoming missile. The U.S. is also deploying missile-defense weapons to Hawaii that would theoretically be capable of shooting down a North Korean missile, should such an order be given, he said.

“We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile…in the direction of Hawaii,” Mr. Gates said. “We are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory.”

In another sign of America’s mounting concern about North Korea, a senior defense official said the U.S. is tracking a North Korean vessel, the Kang Nam, suspected of carrying weapons banned by a recent United Nations resolution.

The U.S. moves come as strains intensify between the U.S. and North Korea. Earlier this year, Pyongyang test-fired a missile that flew over Japan before crashing into the Pacific Ocean. On May 25, Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device at a test site near its border with China, drawing rare rebukes from Moscow and Beijing.

President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met earlier this week at the White House and agreed to launch a new effort to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal. In a joint statement, the Obama administration also agreed to maintain the longstanding U.S. vow to defend South Korea from a North Korean attack.

Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea would launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile at Hawaii from the Dongchang-ni site on the country’s northwestern coast on or close to July 4. In his comments to reporters, Mr. Gates didn’t directly address the Japanese report or say whether the U.S. had evidence that North Korea was preparing for a launch.

Some U.S. officials have said satellite imagery shows activity at a North Korea testing facility that has been used in the past to launch long-range missiles. On a trip to Manila earlier this month, Mr. Gates said the U.S. had “seen some signs” that North Korea was preparing to launch a long-range missile. But he cautioned, that “at this point, its not clear what they’re going to do.”

The stakes would be high for both North Korea and the U.S. in the event of a missile launch.

North Korea would be attempting to demonstrate that it was capable of striking the U.S., but many U.S. defense officials are highly skeptical that North Korea has a missile capable of reaching Hawaii, which is more than 4,500 miles away from North Korea.

North Korean long-range missiles have failed three previous tests in the past 11 years. In the most notable North Korean misfire, a Taepodong-2 missile that Pyongyang launched on July 4, 2006, imploded less than 35 seconds after taking off.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, would have to choose whether to attempt to shoot down the missile, a technically complicated procedure with no guarantee of success. An American failure would embarrass Washington, embolden Pyongyang and potentially encourage Asian allies like Japan to take stronger measures of their own against North Korea.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, who as Hawaii’s adjutant general directs the state’s Army and Air National Guard, said the military “certainly has enough assets to protect the state of Hawaii.”

Last week, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution expanding sanctions and inspections against North Korea in response to the nuclear test. The resolution bars North Korea from exporting a wide range of weaponry, and “calls upon” all U.N. states to search North Korean vessels, with their consent, for nuclear-related material and other contraband.

The senior defense official said the U.S. would seek to have the North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned arms searched before it reaches its final destination, believed to be Singapore. The ship left North Korea on Wednesday. The official said U.S. or allied personnel wouldn’t board the ship by force and would search the ship only with the permission of its crew.

North Korea has said it would view any efforts at interdiction as an act of war, and some U.S. officials worry North Korean vessels would use force to prevent U.S., Japanese or South Korean personnel from searching their ships, potentially sparking an armed confrontation.

More broadly, the Obama administration has recently begun re-evaluating the entire premise of American diplomatic outreach to North Korea. Successive U.S. administrations dating back to the Clinton White House have struck deals with North Korea that traded financial assistance, food and power generators for North Korean promises to shut down its nuclear program. Each time, North Korea eventually backed out of the deals.

Pyongyang’s refusal to honor its agreements has persuaded the Obama administration that North Korea was unlikely to ever voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. That has led the administration to reject the idea of offering North Korea additional aid in exchange for new North Korean vows to abide by agreements it has repeatedly abrogated.

Many Obama administration officials are also skeptical of reopening the so-called six-party talks with North Korea, which also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Instead, the administration is trying to persuade China to take a stronger line with North Korea, a putative ally that is deeply dependent on China. U.S. officials hope China will help search and potentially board suspicious North Korean vessels, but China has been noncommittal.

Asked if China had finally accepted U.S. assessments of the threat posed by North Korea, Mr. Gates demurred. “I think that remains to be seen,” he said.
-Stu Woo contributed to this article.

Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124535285705228571-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE1OTMxNTkyWj.html

More hysteria about North Korea

Post Date June 19, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

This is just a commercial for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the rest of the military contractors at the trough…

Line of defense

Pacific forces are ready to react should North Korea fire a missile

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 19, 2009

Hawaii’s Pacific Command, closely monitoring events in North Korea, says it is “in good position” to respond if called upon by the Pentagon.

The U.S. military is moving more missile defense systems to Hawaii due to new fears North Korea may try to fire missiles toward our islands around the Fourth of July.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the deployment yesterday of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles to Hawaii and deployed the Sea-Based X-Band Radar to provide support from an undisclosed location off the Hawaiian Island chain.

Gates’ comments came in response to a report out of Japan that said North Korea might fire its most advanced ballistic missile toward Hawaii about July 4. North Korea test-fired a long-range missile on July 4 three years ago, but it failed seconds after liftoff and fell into the ocean.

The impact of the report on Hawaii tourism is expected to be slight, said state tourism liaison Marsha Wienert. “With such a large military presence in Hawaii, we don’t believe that it’s a concern,” Wienert said.

Asian visitors, especially those that live near North Korea, are unlikely to view travel to Hawaii as risky, said Dave Erdman, president and chief executive of PacRim Marketing Group.

THAAD is one of two ground-based Army mobile missile interceptor systems, according to the Missile Defense Agency. The other is the Patriot Advanced Capability 3. THAAD has been tested several times at Kauai’s Barking Sands Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Lt. Cmdr. Chuck Bell, Pacific Command spokesman, said that the THAAD mobile missile interceptor system has been at Barking Sands since 2007. Eight missile launchers are mounted on a flatbed truck. The interceptor missiles have no warheads and rely on “hit to kill” technology where kinetic energy destroys the incoming missile during the final or terminal phase of flight.

On June 25, a battery of THAAD soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, fired an interceptor missile from a mobile THAAD launcher at Barking Sands, knocking out a drone missile inside the Earth’s atmosphere. The soldiers were members of the 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade’s 1st THAAD Battery.

The Pentagon’s ballistic missile defense system also includes the Navy’s sea-based Aegis surveillance warships, 16 of which are based in the Pacific Fleet.

A key component of the missile defense system is the $900 million high-rise Sea-Based X-Band Radar, housed in a white dome that has become a familiar visitor to the islands since 2006.

The 28-story radar, mounted on a modified semisubmersible oil-drilling platform, left Ford Island on Wednesday for sea trials, according to a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency in Virginia. The SBX floating radar platform, which is five stories taller than the Ala Moana Building, was in Hawaii for several weeks undergoing maintenance at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

Bell said the floating radar platform, which is said to be able to detect an object the size of a baseball a continent away, will be available to be placed into service if needed. “It is ready and available,” Bell added.

However, he declined to say where the radar platform is headed and how long it will be at sea.

The Missile Defense Agency in the past has said information gathered by the floating radar is transmitted to ground-based missile interceptor bases at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

In September 2007, a target missile was successfully tracked by the floating radar platform and the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer USS Russell. The target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska. The ground-based interceptor missile was fired from Vandenberg, near Los Angeles, 17 minutes after the target missile was launched. During that missile intercept, the SBX radar was located in the northern Pacific between Alaska and California.

Six of the Navy’s 18 cruisers and destroyers equipped with the Aegis long-range surveillance, tracking and missile intercept capabilities are home-ported at Pearl Harbor. They are the cruisers USS Lake Erie and Port Royal and destroyers USS Russell, O’Kane, Paul Hamilton and Hopper.

Star-Bulletin reporter Allison Schaefers and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Missile defense

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense

Purpose: Shoot down short- and medium-range ballistic missiles

Platform: Truck with eight launchers

Capability: Intercept and destroy missiles inside or outside the atmosphere

Technology: Uses “hit to kill” tactic where kinetic energy destroys the incoming warhead

Sea-based X-band Radar

It is a combination of an advanced X-band radar and an oceangoing submersible platform:

Cost: $900 million

Craft: Twin-hulled and self-propelled

Crew: 75 to 80

Length: 398 feet

Width: 240 feet

Height: 282 feet

Sea-Based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense

Capability: Intercept short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles

Testing: 18 intercepts in 22 tests

Deployment: 18 warships — 16 in the Pacific Fleet

Interceptors: Standard Missile-3, Standard Missile-2

Key component: AN/SPY-1, a multi-function phased-array radar

Help! North Koreans want to nuke Hawai'i, and they eat babies!

Post Date June 19, 2009

Comments 0 Comments

Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category International politics & law, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

Well, not really. But if you took to heart the headlines and the fear mongering press about North Korea’s announced missile launch, you might have concluded that North Koreans were just monsters bent on obliterating Hawai’i. The recent announcement by Sec. of Defense Gates that missile defense systems would be deployed to Hawai’i to protect against a North Korean missile launch is more propaganda to demonize and isolate North Korea while inciting fear to generate support for the extremely expensive and ineffective missile defense programs.

Hawaii anti-missile directive a safeguard

By Associated Press

POSTED: 11:07 a.m. HST, Jun 19, 2009

WASHINGTON >> A new anti-missile system ordered for Hawaii is partly a strategy to deter North Korea from test-firing a long-range missile across the Pacific and partly a precaution against the unpredictable regime, military officials said today.

The United States has no indication that North Korean missile technology has improved markedly since past failed launches, and military and other assessments suggest the communist nation probably could not hit the westernmost U.S. state if it tried, officials said.

The North’s Taepodong-2 could travel that far in theory, if it works as designed. But three test launches have either failed or do not demonstrate anything close to that range.

Nonetheless, past failure should not be considered a predictor, one military official said, and the seaborne radar and land-based interceptors were added this week as a prudent backstop.

Military and other U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity t o discuss the U.S. response a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he is concerned about the potential for a North Korean missile launch toward Hawaii.

A senior defense official would not discuss details of range estimates for North Koreans missiles, but said the same principle of caution for Hawaii would apply if the North appeared to threaten U.S. territories in the Pacific.

Japanese media have reported the North Koreans appear to be preparing for a long-range test near July 4. The Daily Yomiuri reported that Japan’s Defense Ministry believes a long-range missile was delivered to the new Dongchang-ni launch site on North Korea’s west coast on May 30.

U.S. analysts say that after the last test fizzled, the North wants to prove its missile capability both as proof of military strength and as a sales tool for its lucrative overseas weapons deals.

A U.S. counterproliferation official said the U.S. government is not currently seeing preparations for launch of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, sometimes short-handed as a TD-2. The official said a launch sometime in the future could not be ruled out but it is too soon to be seeing ground preparations for a launch around July 4.

“I don’t see any evidence that Hawaii is in more danger now than before the last TD-2 launch,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.

It took North Korea about 12 days to complete ground preparations before the April launch of a Taepodong-2, roughly equivalent to a U.S. Titan missile.

If North Korea does launch a long-range missile from its new Dongchang-ni site on the west coast, it could be placed on a southeast trajectory toward Hawaii.

However, the only three long-range missiles fired by North Korea so far have fallen well short of the 4,500 miles required to reach the chain of islands.

The North Korea missile launched in Apr il traveled just under 2,000 miles before falling into the Pacific. That was about double the distance traveled by a similar missile launched in 1998. North Korea also launched a missile in 2006 but it fizzled shortly after take off.