Defense radar plan puts regional stability at risk

In another provocative move that may further complicate regional security and even spark a new arms race among major powers, the United States is reportedly mulling a plan to deploy a new stationary radar - the Homeland Defense Radar - in Japan to help reinforce the US system aimed at intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting US territories.

The US already boasts the world's most advanced land-based anti-ballistic missile system, with missiles deployed in Alaska and California to intercept attacks. Yet in the Missile Defense Review released on Jan 17, US President Donald Trump still expressed the intention to reinforce that system, citing threats of intercontinental ballistic missile attacks by Russia, China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The radar deployment is just part of that plan.

Building unrivaled and unmatched military supremacy for the US has been in Trump's mind ever since he came to office. His professed military buildup ambition includes a dramatic increase in US nuclear stockpiles and building a Space Force to turn space into a war-fighting domain like the land, air and sea. His threat to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty risks undoing all disarmament efforts the world has witnessed over the past decades.