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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emeritus professor Theodore Postol

In addition to his claims about the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system being effectively useless in intercepting North Korean missiles with explosive devices attached, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emeritus professor Theodore Postol also cited a number of problems with South Korean Ministry of National Defense claims overstating the system’s efficacy since North Korea’s recent long-range rocket launch.

First, Postol responded to the claim that a single THAAD battery would be capable of shielding half or two-thirds of South Korean territory from a North Korean SCUD or Nodong missile.

“The THAAD is theoretically [emphasis in original] capable of defending against SCUD and Nodong ballistic missiles,” he conceded.

But he added that it would be “very easy to make it nearly impossible for the THAAD interceptor to hit the warhead on an attacking missile.”

“All that would need to be done is to intentionally cause an incoming SCUD or Nodong to tumble end over end.”

In other words, no matter how broad the THAAD radar‘s detection range is, the system would lose any efficacy if it could not successfully intercept a missile.

“This could easily be accomplished by putting a small impulse rocket motor on the back end of a missile and firing the motor after the missile has completed powered flight,” Postol noted about the tumbling.

“The North Koreans have been using impulse rockets on the Unha-3, and there is absolutely no reason that they could not choose to attach such a rocket motor to the backend of any of the three ballistic missiles that the South Korean government has incorrectly assumed would not be a tumbling target,” he added.

Postol’s argument means that the tumbling issue is another important concern besides missile explosion technology.

Postol also addressed ministry claims that THAAD would be helpful in detection and interception of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) deployed by North Korea.

“At least three, and possibly four[,] THAAD radars would be needed to be able to monitor SLBM arrival trajectories from 360°,” he said.

The reason so many radar systems would be needed is that each THAAD battery‘s radar has a detection angle of 120 degrees.

If North Korea were to launch a short-range SLBM at a target on the South Korean coast, any interception missile would have to be located in the same region as the target or nearby to stop it, Postol noted.

If South Korea does find itself threatened by North Korean short-range SLBMs in the future, a better strategy would be to deploy an independently developed surface-to-air missile system, he argued. While such a system would not necessarily beef up South Korea’s defense capabilities against North Korean SLBMs, he explained, it would still be better - and certainly much cheaper - than THAAD.

“The current launch of the [Kwangmyongsong] demonstrates no new rocket technologies that could be applied to building an ICBM,” Postol added.

“The slow pace of past rocket developments in North Korea strongly indicate[s] that the development of such a new and much larger first stage, and the associated hardware, could easily take 10 years or more.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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