It is very hard to counter submarine launched ballistic missiles, although South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo on Sunday said the THAAD system will be capable of intercepting such a threat.
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But North Korea watchers said it was unnerving to see it pull off another so-called cold launch, whereby the engines ignite after the missile is out of the water.
Vowing a “physical response”, state media in North Korea said: “There will be physical response measures from us as soon as the location and time that the invasionary tool for USA world supremacy, THAAD, will be brought into South Korea”.
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The rhetoric is normally ratcheted up at times of high tension.
Just this week, the South Korean Defence Ministry confirmed new submarine-launched ballistic missile tests in North Korea.
The launch was probably a sign of protest against the US blacklisting last week of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other individuals and entities for human rights abuses.
The North regularly makes such threats against the South and the US.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command determined the missile launch – presumed to be a KN-11 submarine-launched ballistic missile – did not pose a threat to North America, the release said.
North Korea’s military, which has “sufficient latest offensive strike means”, will take “more merciless and powerful successive corresponding measures against the USA keen to ignite a war by deploying THAAD”, it said.
The announcement was the latest move by the allies against the North, which conducted its fourth nuclear test this year and launched a long-range rocket, resulting in tough new United Nations sanctions.
“The biggest problem of the peninsula’s messy situation lies in U.S.’ Cold-War strategy in Northeast Asia, and its mind-set of balancing China in the region”.
Beijing claims that the system can be used against it on concerns that the powerful X-band radar that comes with THAAD could spy on China’s military.
Speaking to senior presidential secretaries, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday that North Korea’s threats are “life-threatening issues” against the future and life of Korean people.
The defense ministry is expected to announce the site for the deployment within a few weeks.
A military source said, “North Korea will be able to deploy an SLBM within two or three years”.
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The US maintains 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war.
