U.S. Army could deploy THAAD air defense missile system in Europe - Middle East and Asia 12303162

Defence & Security News - United States
 
U.S. Army could deploy THAAD air defense missile system in Europe - Middle East and Asia.
The U.S. Army will have five operational Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile systems by the end of the year with possible deployments in Europe and the Middle East, a senior American defense official said Tuesday. The United States is also in talks with South Korea for THAAD deployment in the Korean Peninsula amid nuclear threat from North Korea.
     
The U.S. Army will have five operational Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile systems by the end of the year with possible deployments in Europe and the Middle East, a senior American defense official said Tuesday. The United States is also in talks with South Korea for THAAD deployment in the Korean Peninsula amid nuclear threat from North Korea. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile launcher sits at Fort Sill, Okla. 5 (Source Stars and Stripes)
     
The United States hopes to talk with China and address its concern about the possible deployment of the THAAD missile defense system that Washington is discussing with Seoul, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, stressed that the United States and South Korea had just begun discussions, and no decision had been made to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday told a congressional hearing that Seoul and Washington had an "agreement in principle" to discuss deploying a THAAD system to South Korea. Doing so, he said, would protect "the entirety of the peninsula against North Korean missiles of greater range."

Shortly after North Korea's launch of a long-rage rocket last month, South Korea and the U.S. jointly announced they would begin official discussions on the possible placement of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in the South.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) element provides the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) with a globally transportable, rapidly deployable capability to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final, or terminal, phase of flight.

The THAAD (theatre high-altitude area defence) missile system is an easily transportable defensive weapon system to protect against hostile incoming threats such as tactical and theatre ballistic missiles at ranges of 200km and at altitudes up to 150km.