NORTH KOREA’S DANGEROUS GAME: As Washington was consumed this weekend by President Trump’s bombshell accusation of illegal wiretapping of his campaign by President Obama last fall, half a world away a very real threat was playing out. North Korea, in continued defiance of UN resolutions, fired a barrage of four intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the direction of Japan’s territorial waters. The missile launch comes as U.S. and South Korean militaries are engaged in a massive annual exercise called Foal Eagle, which is billed as a rehearsal for the defense of South Korea, but which Pyongyang always condemns as a prelude to an invasion of the North. The war games involve more than 320,000 U.S. and ROK troops, and in addition to the 28,500 American troops regularly stationed in South Korea, the U.S. sent another 3,500 to take part in the exercise. The U.S. is bound by treaty to defend the South against the North, since the 1953 Korean war ended with an armistice, not a formal peace agreement.

North Korea’s unbridled pursuit of missile technology that can threaten the United States has put a renewed focus on the state of U.S. missile defenses, long derided by critics as a “pie in the sky” program that has failed to produce a real missile shield the U.S. can rely on in a crisis. In this week’s magazine we look those criticisms and examine the question, “Can the U.S. shoot down North Korean missiles?” The Pentagon has repeatedly said the U.S. has the capability, and the numbers suggest the claim may be valid, especially for the THAAD system [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense]. The deployment of Lockheed Martin’s THAAD to South Korea, first proposed last summer, has been in slow motion as Seoul has been wary of provoking China, but the latest North Korean missile tests have added new urgency to the need for missile defenses. Acting South Korean President Hwang Kyo-ahn called for the early deployment THAAD during a meeting of his National Security Council today.