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delft said:

What advantage would a "surprise attack " offer?

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What advantages have they ever offered, delft?

It does not have to make sense to you or I. There does not have to be a "good" reason to you or I. All that matters is what the people initiating such an attack think. They may be deluded, they may miscalculate, they may want to grab territory, the may want to punish someone, the may want to divert attention, they may just be crazy or downright mean. In the end, none of that matters or implies that it will not happen just because we do not see the reason or the advantage. The fact is, throughout history such attacks have occurred. Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa, etc., etc.

The Japanese are wise to not take anything for granted when someone, particularly a belligerent nation, is firing ballistic missiles over their terrirtory...and over their heavily populated territory to boot.

jobjed said:

That defeats the purpose of putting fuel inside the rockets. If they don't let the missiles fly to the maximum range they're designed for, it wouldn't be a test, would it? And yes, they do have to fly them over Japan because that's the direction of the Pacific Ocean.

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They don't have to fly them over a densely populated country like Japan and into the pacific. Why cant they fire them north over sparsely inhibited Siberia and into the sea of Okhotsk or South through the Gap in the East China Sea?

Not into Siberia because that would be actual Russian territory.

The final note on this issue I think is to say that as far as we know Japan still lacks true ballistic missile defense systems, the actions taken by the Japanese PM and JSDF are mostly targeted at domestic consumption. Its a reassurance for the population. The American Navy is the only real anti ballistic missile asset Japan has right now.

Care to elaborate on what do you think Japanese systems are made off and where it lacks? On a final note I can add that there's no BMD system which worked perfectly and there's nothing like 100% sure protection in this world agains ballistic missiles...

delft said:

If a North Korean missile meant to fly over Japan were to malfunction and risk landing on Japan no doubt a safety officer would blow up the missile in good time if not to save Japanese lives at least to prevent the wreckage falling into Japanese and US hands.

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That presupposes that:

1. North Korean technology is reliable enough that they could blow the missile up if it malfunctions (e.g. what if more than one part of it is malfunctioning); and
2. The North Koreans wouldn't prefer to see Japanese people killed in an "accident", especially if the missile detonated and left behind precious little of interest.

There is no point in making assumptions about what North Korea would do based on how a sane country would act. Remember this is a barbaric regime that has no problem in dealing out harsh, regular punishments to its own people and in terms of its foreign policy wildly alternates between doomsday threats and offers of peace.

Only a complacent, naive Prime Minister would not take any military precautions during these missile launches.

EDIT: Ooops, I see TerraN_EmpirE has already posted something similar!

delft said:

What advantage would a "surprise attack " offer?

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It need not be a surprise attack, it could just be a deliberate attack made to look like an accident.

"Oh sorry about that. But it's your own fault because you/America threaten us, so we have to test these missiles and they'd be more accurate if we weren't under sanctions."

TerraN_EmpirE said:

The final note on this issue I think is to say that as far as we know Japan still lacks true ballistic missile defense systems, the actions taken by the Japanese PM and JSDF are mostly targeted at domestic consumption. Its a reassurance for the population. The American Navy is the only real anti ballistic missile asset Japan has right now.

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Four of the JMSDF AEGIS destroyers, the four Kongo class DDGs are BMD capable. They are working on getting both Atago class AEGIS vessels also equipped and capable.

Those Japanese vessels have conducted four live fire tests against test BMDs and downed three of them. The first one was on December 17th, 2007, when the JS Kongō successfully intercepted a ballistic missile with SM-3 Block IA and Aegis System on a Pacific firing range.

In addition, the latest Patriot battery upgrades also have a BMD capability. Japan has 16 batteries of PAC-3 capable missiles. I believe they have all been upgraded to configuration 3 as well.

Japan's threat is not a hollow one.

Small precisions for Patriot, JASDF get 24 batteries in 6 x Air Def Miss Grp each get 4 batt with 5 launchers one batt : 5 x Pac-2 or 3 x Pac-2 and 2 x Pac-3. Total 120 launchers.
Right now 5 Air Def Miss grp use Pac-2/3.
In more one training unit.

Patriot units are mixed because SM-3 is only ABM as THAAD with a short range, 20 km and Pac-2 less recent but get one range of 160 km. They complement.



JASDF get 13 E-2C in one unit at Misawa, can easy create one second better placed...

Jeff Head said:

What advantages have they ever offered, delft?

It does not have to make sense to you or I. There does not have to be a "good" reason to you or I. All that matters is what the people initiating such an attack think. They may be deluded, they may miscalculate, they may want to grab territory, the may want to punish someone, the may want to divert attention, they may just be crazy or downright mean. In the end, none of that matters or implies that it will not happen just because we do not see the reason or the advantage. The fact is, throughout history such attacks have occurred. Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa, etc., etc.

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This is not a valid comparison. Germany and Japan were at the time two of most powerful countries in the world. North Korea has only deterrence capability. It acts to maintain its deterrence and is not noticeably belligerent.

deterrence Against Who?
They have enough Cannon's and conventional Rockets pointed at south Korea to render Seoul a hole in the ground.
They rely on Russian and Chinese aide to maintain there military strength.
Japan is more worried about maintaining it's Island claims and territorial integrity, They lack by Choice Nuclear options. And other then the Doku islands seem to have more or less a live and let live policy with South Korea and a Why bother with the north Koreans.
The Taiwan is more worried about the PRC to deal with NK, Singapore is two small or worried about it's own interest, the Philippines don't have the fire power to threaten NK, Vietnam has no interest.
And the US is out of range.
So why do they have this?
I think there own propiganda sums it up.
[video=youtube_share;P7e0Q1EUiZk]http://youtu.be/P7e0Q1EUiZk[/video]