Missile Defense of the U.S. and Their Allies in Northeast Asia and Regional Security

The situation around the Korean Peninsula combines such factors as nuclear weapons, missile defense systems, and huge groups of conventional armed forces concentrated in Northeast Asia. The U.S. administration argues that missile defense’s mission is to counter the threat from North Korean missiles to American and allied troops in South Korea and Japan. Hence, this line of confrontation between the U.S. and DPRK is at the focus of the article. A significant number of experts believe that regional missile defense (theater missile defense, TMD) will only stabilize the situation. The purpose of this article is to determine a possible impact of strengthened TMD architecture of the U.S., South Korean and Japanese forces for the security situation in the region under consideration. The author analyzes scenarios, which are most often discussed by experts, scientists, military, and politicians. The role of the doctrinal guidelines of the DPRK, South Korea and the United States in aggravating the situation in the event of strengthening of the American and allied regional missile defense system in Northeast Asia in the context of a political-military crisis is shown.

Northeast Asia, regional missile defense, theater missile defense, deterrence, political-military crisis, nuclear weapons, preemptive strike