REINFORCING THE SHIELD, REASSURING ALLIES: One of America’s most effective anti-missile systems is finally deploying to South Korea, after months of negotiations and delays. The “first elements” of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system have arrived, and will soon be operational, according to U.S. officials. The hangup had been China, which opposes the deployment, and had threatened South Korea with economic relations if it accepted the advanced system with its long range radars from the U.S. But apparently, North Korea’s latest launch of more than four medium-range missiles was enough to convince South Korea it was worth angering its neighbor to the west. In a statement, U.S. Pacific Commander Adm. Harry Harris said, “Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday’s launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea.” THAAD, built by Lockheed Martin, is designed to intercept and destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final, or terminal, phase of flight, according to the statement. You can see video of its arrival here.

Bellicose rhetoric continues to spew from North Korean state media, which now claims leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised Monday’s missile salvo, and that it was designed to demonstrate the DPRK’s ability to strike U.S. bases in Japan. Pentagon officials said yesterday that the U.S. could tell from the trajectory of the four missiles that they wouldn’t make it far as Japan, although they did travel about 600 miles in more or less a straight line from North Korea’s west coast, across the northern Korean peninsula, before falling into the Sea of Japan, several hundred miles from Japan’s west coast. And officials said more than four missiles were  fired, but an undisclosed number failed.