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The Pulitzer Prize Board is set to honor journalists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for their work memorializing 17 classmates and coaches killed in a shooting last year.

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, eight students and the faculty adviser of The Eagle Eye newspaper traveled to New York for the honorary luncheon.

The Eagle Eye staff submitted their package of obituaries to the public service category of the annual Pulitzer Prize awards that recognize exceptional work by U.S. newspapers, magazines and news sites.

The student newspaper did not win, but during the April announcement of the awards, Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy spoke of her “sincere admiration” for their entry and said they “give us all hope for the future of journalism.”

“The Eagle Eye’s submission stated that the student reporters and editors had to ‘put aside our grief and recognize our roles as both survivors, journalists and loved ones of the deceased,'” Canedy said.”These budding journalists remind us of the media’s unwavering commitment to bearing witness — even in the most wrenching of circumstances — in service to a nation whose very existence depends on a free and dedicated press.”
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The Pulitzer Prize Board is set to honor journalists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for their work memorializing 17 classmates and coaches killed in a shooting last year.

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, eight students and the faculty adviser of The Eagle Eye newspaper traveled to New York for the honorary luncheon.

The Eagle Eye staff submitted their package of obituaries to the public service category of the annual Pulitzer Prize awards that recognize exceptional work by U.S. newspapers, magazines and news sites.

The student newspaper did not win, but during the April announcement of the awards, Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy spoke of her “sincere admiration” for their entry and said they “give us all hope for the future of journalism.”

“The Eagle Eye’s submission stated that the student reporters and editors had to ‘put aside our grief and recognize our roles as both survivors, journalists and loved ones of the deceased,'” Canedy said.”These budding journalists remind us of the media’s unwavering commitment to bearing witness — even in the most wrenching of circumstances — in service to a nation whose very existence depends on a free and dedicated press.”
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Enhanced military cooperation between the United States and Japan in the face of a rising China was emphasized as President Donald Trump concluded a four-day state visit in the island nation. 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Tuesday morning, hosted Trump on the deck of the JS Kaga, one of Japan’s helicopter carriers that will soon be converted to carry a short takeoff/vertical landing variant of the American-made F-35 supersonic stealth jet fighter. 

The two leaders did not mention China by name in their remarks, but their concern about Beijing’s assertive stance militarily in the Pacific was obvious. 

WATCH: Trump Japan visit comes to a close

Abe spoke of an “increasingly severe security environment in the region.”

Trump said Japan’s purchase of an 105 additional F-35 Lightning II jets (each with a price tag of around $100 million) “will help our nations defend against a range of complex threats in the region and far beyond.” 

Later, addressing hundreds of sailors on the nearby USS Wasp, Trump said of the F-35 planes: “The enemy has a problem with it. You know what the problem is? They can’t see it.” 

Since the end of World War Two, when the United States and Japan were enemies, the Japanese have largely depended on American forces for defense. 

“Now the Chinese are flexing their muscles eyeing two Japanese island chains,” says a source close to Prime Minister Abe. 

“There’s an increasing need for us to do something on the eastern part of the archipelago with Japanese air power,” the source explained to VOA. “It is to supplement the U.S. 7th Fleet obviously and it is not to say the U.S. fleet is less accountable.”

There has been nervousness in Japan, which has a pacifist clause in its constitution imposed on it after the war by the U.S. occupation, about America’s long-term commitment to the defense of the island nation with scant natural resources. The worry grew after Trump won the 2016 presidential election. He had been known as a prominent “Japan basher” for decades as a real estate developer and has in office continued to criticize Tokyo for what he considers Japan taking unfair advantage of the United States in trade and not paying enough to host tens of thousands of American forces on its soil. 

Trump’s latest visit to Japan is seen as assuaging some of those concerns, although trade frictions persist. 

Trump, on Monday, said finalizing a new trade pact would be postponed until after parliamentary elections in Japan in July. 

Trump restrained himself during his visit by not pushing Abe too hard on trade, according to Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C.

“For Trump to suggest that any trade deal will be after August was a good political gesture for Abe,” Tatsumi told VOA. “I think Abe will be put in a tougher spot in the long run, though. Atmospherics were extremely good indeed, but there was very little substance. There will be questions asked on whether it was worth it to welcome Trump with all those bells and whistles, especially when the visit achieved no concrete deliverable.” 

Trump repeatedly touted that he was honored to be the first state guest of the new Reiwa imperial era during which Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako hosted him and first lady Melania Trump for a banquet at the Imperial Palace on Monday evening. 

Abe accompanied Trump for a round of golf at a private course outside Tokyo and sat alongside him on the final day of a sumo wrestling tournament where the president awarded a large trophy, which he said he had personally purchased, to the champion wrestler. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will wrap up a trip to Japan by addressing American service personnel Tuesday at the naval base at Yokosuka outside Tokyo. Despite differences on North Korea and trade, the president’s trip is highlighting U.S. security commitments to its ally in the region, as well as an opportunity for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to show Japan is shouldering its defense burden. VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Fiat Chrysler proposed a merger Monday with Renault, a union that would create the world’s third biggest automaker.

The merger, if it happens, would vault the new company, with annual sales of 8.7 million vehicles, into a position ahead of General Motors and behind only Volkswagen and Toyota, both of which sell about 10.6 million.

The merger could give the combined companies a better chance in the battle among auto manufacturers to build new electric and autonomous vehicles.

Investors in both companies showed their initial approval of the announcement, with Renault’s shares jumping 15 percent in afternoon trading in Paris and Fiat Chrysler stock up more than 10 percent in Milan. The proposal calls for shareholders to split ownership of the new company.

Fiat Chrysler said the deal would save the combined companies $5.6 billion annually with shared payments for research, purchasing and other expenses. The deal does not call for closure of any manufacturing plants but the companies did not say whether any employees would lose their jobs.

The deal would give Fiat access to Renault’s electric car technologies, allowing it to meet the strict carbon dioxide emission standards the European Commission is enacting.

For its part, Renault might be able to gain ground in the U.S. market because of Fiat’s extensive operations in North America.

The French government owns 15 percent of Renault and said it supports the merger, while adding that “the terms of this merger must be supportive of Renault’s economic development, and obviously of Renault’s employees.”

 
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The residents of this small riverside town have become accustomed to watching floods swamp their streets, transform their homes into islands and ruin their floors and furniture.

Elmer Sullivan has replaced his couch, bed and television. He’s torn up water-buckled floorboards. And he put a picket fence against the front of his house to cover up a gap left when waters washed out part of the stone foundation.

“I just don’t want to mess with it anymore. I’m 83 years old and I’m tired of it, and I just want to get out of it,” Sullivan said.

Finally fed up, Sullivan and nearly half of the homeowners in Mosby signed up in 2016 for a program in which the government would buy and then demolish their properties rather than paying to rebuild them over and over. They’re still waiting for offers, joining thousands of others across the country in a slow-moving line to escape from flood-prone homes.

Patience is wearing thin in Mosby, a town of fewer than 200 people with a core of lifelong residents and some younger newcomers drawn by the cheap prices of its modest wood-frame homes. Residents watched nervously this past week as high waters again threatened the town.

“It really is frustrating, because here we are, we’re coming through a wet season. There’s a chance that we could possibly flood, and we’re still waiting,” said Jason Stooksbury, an alderman who oversees the town’s efforts to curb flooding. “It’s not a good situation, but what are you going to do — it’s the government process.”

Over the past three decades, federal and local governments have poured more than $5 billion into buying tens of thousands of vulnerable properties across the country, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The AP analysis shows those buyouts have been getting more expensive, with many of the costliest coming in the last decade after strong storms pounded heavily populated coastal states such as Texas, New York and New Jersey. This year’s record flooding in the Midwest could add even more buyouts to the queue.

The purchases are happening as the climate changes. Along rivers and sea coasts, some homes that were once considered at little risk are now endangered due to water that is climbing higher and surging farther inland than historic patterns predicted.

Regardless of the risks, the buyouts are voluntary. Homeowners can renew taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance policies indefinitely.

With more extreme weather events, flooding “is going to become more and more of an issue, and there will be more and more properties that are at risk of total loss or near total loss,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over FEMA. “Then the question is: Are we just going to keep selling them insurance and building in the same place?”

DeFazio wants to expand and revamp a buyout process that he describes as inefficient and irrational. He’s backing a proposed pilot project that would give homeowners a break on their flood insurance premiums, as long as they agree in advance to a buyout that would turn their property into green space if their homes are substantially damaged by a flood.

Buyout programs rely on federal money distributed through the states, but they generally are carried out by cities and counties that end up owning the properties.

Most buyouts are initiated after disasters, but Congress has become more proactive. Appropriations for FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program — which funds buyouts and other precautions, such as elevating homes before disasters strike — have risen from $25 million in 2015 to $250 million this year.

A recent study for the National Institute of Building Sciences found that society as a whole saves $7 in avoided costs for every $1 spent through federally funded grants to acquire or demolish flood-prone buildings. Yet it’s harder to gauge the benefits for the individuals who move.

After Superstorm Sandy pummeled New Jersey and New York in 2012, Duke University graduate school student Devon McGhee researched what happened to hundreds of Staten Island homeowners who took buyouts. She found that all but two of the 323 homeowners she tracked relocated to areas with higher poverty levels. Three-quarters remained on Staten Island, and about one-fifth moved to homes that still were exposed to coastal flooding hazards.

“When people take the buyouts, sometimes the money they are given on their home is not enough to buy a comparable home in a lower-risk area,” said McGhee, who now works as a coastal management specialist for an engineering and consulting firm.

The prolonged buyout process also can take an emotional toll on people who are uprooted.

“Maybe they find a home, and it’s a good home, but it’s not their home where their kids grew up and had birthday parties and that sort of thing. There are these losses that occur in that transition process that can have implications for years,” said Sherri Brokopp Binder, an Allentown, Pennsylvania-based consultant who researches disaster buyouts.

Multiple layers of government bureaucracy can slow the buyout process. So can the typical hiccups that come with property sales.

In Kingfisher, Oklahoma, officials are still working to complete a buyout prompted by Tropical Storm Erin in 2007. The city initiated a buyout in 2010, then received additional money to buy more homes about five years later. It’s purchased more than 80 so far, with about 10 more to go, said Annie Vest, a former Oklahoma state hazard mitigation officer who now works for an engineering firm administering Kingfisher’s grant.

The process is just getting started in some Texas communities swamped by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Officials in Liberty County, northeast of Houston, held a meeting with residents last month to discuss a $6.7 million HUD grant to buy out homes near the Trinity River. The county still must get appraisals of the homes, conduct asbestos inspections and take bids for a demolition contractor.

Local officials hope to start taking buyout applications by the end of the year, said David Douglas, the Liberty County engineering administrator and flood plain manager.

Formal discussions of a federally funded buyout likely are a long way off in Hamburg, Iowa, which was inundated in March by a breach of a Missouri River levee.

But local officials aren’t waiting around. Mayor Cathy Crain said they are looking into the potential for a private developer to relocate some houses and to acquire higher land where new homes and businesses could be built.

Relocating to higher ground isn’t likely in Mosby, unless residents are willing to go elsewhere. The entire core of the town is in a floodway, which means that new development is limited.

Located just northeast of Kansas City, Mosby began as a railroad town in 1887 and expanded with coal mines in the early 20th century.  At one time, it had a school, bank, grocery store and lumber yard. Those are gone now, and the trains merely pass by. In 2015, financial strains led the town to eliminate its small police force.

Mosby experienced some of its worst flooding that same year, with three floods in less than six weeks. The next year, city officials began pursuing the buyouts, and more than 40 homeowners signed up. They’ve been in limbo ever since. Local officials sought nearly $3 million in funding, submitted a revised application, obtained property appraisals and conducted environmental reviews.

Some residents have been scouting for new housing. Others are waiting to see the bids, which are expected this summer.

Sullivan hopes to get $28,000 for his home. He would move near his sister in southeastern Missouri, but he’s getting impatient.

“I’m just about ready to tell them, `Take it and shove it,”‘ he said.

Sitting on the concrete porch of the white wooden house where she’s lived for the past 36 years, Tammy Kilgore explains that “everybody’s just really on edge and ready to leave.”

“The floods, I’m tired of dealing with them, I really am,” she said. “I think they should have bought out this town a long time ago.”

 
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The United States paused Monday to honor its war dead on the annual Memorial Day.

With U.S. President Donald Trump in Japan on a state visit, Vice President Mike Pence laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington. Trump, before returning home, is marking the holiday with an address Tuesday to American troops at the Yokosuka U.S. Naval Base near Tokyo about the “global nature of the partnership between Japan and the U.S.”

At the cemetery, Pence told hundreds of military dignitaries and relatives of the fallen that the U.S. “can never fully repay” its debt to those who gave their lives for the country.

“We will never forget,” he said, “and we will never forget to honor” them. “Their duty was to serve, our duty is to honor them.”

Parades and somber remembrances are planned in U.S. cities large and small on Monday to recall the ultimate sacrifice that hundreds of thousands of Americans have borne for their country’s freedom through its 243-year existence.

It is estimated that 1.1 million Americans have died in conflict, but the largest single death toll — nearly a half million — came in the 19th century U.S. Civil War fought between northern and southern states over slavery, a practice ended after Union states in the northern U.S. prevailed. In the deadliest overseas conflict, more than 400,000 Americans were killed in World War II.

Various places across the U.S. have been cited in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, with perhaps the first commemoration of war dead in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended. In early rural America, families often marked the day in late summer. For years, the memorial was known as Decoration Day and the fallen from all U.S. wars were remembered and their service honored.

Memorial Day for years was set on May 30, but it became a national U.S. holiday in 1971 and now is celebrated on the last Monday in May. For some, a national moment of remembrance is set at 3 p.m. local time on the holiday.

Families of the fallen often visit the grave sites of their loved ones or watch parades with bands and flag-waving marchers. But for other Americans, the day is unofficially the beginning of summer and part of a three-day weekend when families head to parks and the beach or enjoy picnics with friends and relatives.

In Washington on Sunday, thousands of motorcycles roared through the streets for what organizers say will be the last Rolling Thunder celebration in the nation’s capital.

The annual Memorial Day tradition is meant to draw attention to more than 83,000 U.S. military personnel still listed as Missing in Action from World War I through the recent fighting in Iraq. The list also includes 126 people believed missing from operations related to the Cold War.

The first Rolling Thunder was held in 1988. The cyclists usually meet up in a Pentagon parking lot and ride into downtown Washington across the various bridges spanning the Potomac River.

But Rolling Thunder Executive Director Artie Muller said this is the last year he will hold the ride in Washington.

Muller said he has grown frustrated with the Pentagon bureaucracy in coordinating the event. Mueller said sponsors, vendors and others have not been given access to parking lots even though Rolling Thunder said it paid “exorbitant permit fees.”

For many people, the group’s decades-long presence with the loud roar of their motorcycle engines has become synonymous with Memorial Day activities in Washington.

Trump says Rolling Thunder is always welcome in the city.

“The Great Patriots of Rolling Thunder will be coming back to Washington, D.C. next year, and hopefully for many years to come. It is where they want to be and where they should be,” Trump tweeted as he thanked the “great men & women of the Pentagon for working it out.”

In an interview with VOA, Muller said Rolling Thunder is “willing to talk” with the president. But despite the president’s postings on Twitter, Muller said, “I think we really want to go nationwide” with local chapters holding their own observations on Memorial Day.

Muller said the annual trek to the nation’s capital is becoming too much for some Rolling Thunder members. “We’re all getting old and can’t ride that far,” he said. For members who come from the West Coast, Muller said, “It a haul. You’re talking 2 to 3,000 miles… That takes a lot out of you.”

Pentagon figures show 83,000 American military personnel remain unaccounted for. Most of them — about 73,000 — are from World War II. Upwards of 7,700 are from the Korean War, and more than 1,600 are from the Vietnam War.

Trump, before he left for Tokyo to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said he is considering pardons for several military servicemen accused or convicted of war crimes, an action that critics say would be an abuse of his pardon powers.

“We’re looking at a lot of different pardons for a lot of different people,” Trump said at the White House.

“Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard, long, you know. We teach them how to be great fighters and when they fight sometimes they get really treated very unfairly. So we’re going to take a look at it,” Trump said.

He acknowledged that two or three cases were “a little bit controversial.”

But as Memorial Day dawned across the U.S., Trump had yet to announce any pardons.

 
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Former U.S. football superstar Bart Starr, who led his Green Bay Packers to victory in the first two Super Bowls, has died at 85.

The Packers gave no cause of death, but Starr had not fully recovered from two strokes and a heart attack five years ago.

Starr arrived in Green Bay in 1956 after playing college football for the University of Alabama.

He was a solid but unremarkable player until legendary coach Vince Lombardi took over the Packers in 1959.

Starr’s name became synonymous with football greatness in the 1960s.

Starr and Lombardi led Green Bay to five NFL championships, including wins in Super Bowls I and II.

The 1967 Super Bowl will be forever known as the Ice Bowl, with wind chills as low as minus 56 degrees Celsius at one point.

Despite the miserable conditions and with just minutes to go, Starr completed five consecutive passes and ran the ball into the end zone himself, to come from behind and beat the Dallas Cowboys, 21-17.

Starr retired from playing in 1971 and later coached the Packers. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.

Starr co-founded a ranch for troubled boys and the NFL’s annual Bart Starr Award goes to the player who shows outstanding charitable traits.

 
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President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers are away from Washington, but questions about possible impeachment of the president continue to swirl as the White House thwarts multiple investigations led by House Democrats after the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, while the House could impeach, Trump is virtually assured of remaining in office as there is almost zero chance the Republican-led Senate would convict him.
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President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers are away from Washington, but questions about possible impeachment of the president continue to swirl as the White House thwarts multiple investigations led by House Democrats after the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. While the House could impeach, Trump is virtually assured of remaining in office as there is almost zero chance the Republican-led Senate would convict him.

Democrats are using their House majority to investigate Trump and his administration on everything from the treatment of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border to the president’s foreign business dealings and tax returns. Democrats also want the Justice Department to release the full, unredacted Mueller report. The White House is blocking them at almost every turn, causing tempers to boil over.

“The Trump administration has taken obstruction of Congress to new heights,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

His words were echoed by Judiciary Committee member Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, also a Democrat.

“We have to surmise that this is an absolute lawless behavior by this administration,” she said.

The House is taking steps to hold key administration officials in contempt of Congress, but the body has a more potent – and explosive – option: formally leveling charges against Trump, or impeachment.

“What we need to do is at least be on that track and at least be in the process of impeachment,” said. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat.

Republicans see Democrats as desperately clinging to a narrative of presidential wrongdoing after special counsel Mueller found no collusion between Trump’s inner circle and Russia.

“The Democrats have no plans, no purpose, and no viable legislative agenda beyond attacking this administration,” said Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee.

And powerful Democratic leaders, among them House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are wary of launching impeachment proceedings, at least for now.

“Impeachment is a very divisive place to go in our country. And we can get the facts to the American people, through our investigation. It may take us to a place where it is unavoidable, in terms of impeachment.”

Meanwhile, President Trump, sticking to his guns, called on Democrats to “get these phony investigations over with.”

Last week, Trump halted consultations with Democrats on a major initiative to modernize U.S. infrastructure until congressional probes are complete.

“You (Democrats) can go down the investigation track and you can go down the investment track – or the track of let’s get things done for the American people,” Trump said.

Two U.S. presidents have been impeached, most recently Bill Clinton. The impeachment vote sullied Clinton’s record but did not lead to his removal from office. The same likely would be true for Trump. Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination all want to oust Trump, but at the ballot box.

“It seems like every day or two, there is another affront to the rule of law … The best thing I can do to get us a new president is to win the nomination and defeat the president who’s there,” said Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate, one of more than twenty running to unseat Trump, speaking on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program.

Polls do not show the American people clamoring for Trump’s impeachment. Bill Clinton’s approval numbers actually rose after House Republicans launched impeachment proceedings against him in 1998.

 
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Kim Dong-hyun of the VOA Korean Service contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — South Korea should integrate its missile defense system with that of the U.S. to maximize the combined capabilities to counter a potential incoming flight of North Korea’s missiles across the border, experts said in the wake of Pyongyang’s two missile launches in early May.

South Korea’s missile defense system and the U.S. antimissile defense system deployed in South Korea are coordinated but operate independently.

“The whole system would work better if it was fully integrated, if it was a completely combined operation,” said Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now a professor at Angelo State University in Texas.

​Why not integrate systems?

The lack of integration is rooted in regional history. The South Korean government, whether it was conservative or liberal, never merged its system with the U.S. system for political reasons, in part, because integrating it would mean joining the U.S. missile defense alliance in the region that includes Japan, South Korea’s colonial adversary toward which South Korea’s public sentiment has been historically antagonistic, according to Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp. research center.

Streamlining the command and control of the two missile defense systems with autonomous command and control would cut the time needed to analyze data, share information, and cue the proper system for targeting and intercepting an incoming missile, according to David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and current fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

On May 17, the Pentagon announced the U.S. had approved a $314 million sale of air defense missiles to South Korea.

South Korea’s missile defense system, termed the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), includes Aegis and Patriot systems, and is designed to protect South Korea from missiles that fly at different altitudes and distance by detecting, tracking and intercepting incoming missiles in the air. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), which currently falls under the U.S. missile defense system, is also deployed in South Korea.

Aegis, a sea-based missile defense system, and THAAD are area defense weapons that have the capabilities to defend wide areas against missiles that fly high altitudes. And, the Patriot system, known as pointed defense weapons, can intercept missiles directed against smaller areas such as air base, according to Maxwell.

​No perfect defense

But they don’t provide a perfect defense that prevents missiles from getting through, he added.

“There’s no impenetrable shield,” Maxwell said. “There [is] always going to be a gap, a seam, a weakness, that the enemy is always trying to exploit and defenders are always trying to fix and find a better way. This is constantly a game of where capabilities continue to evolve.”

This was part of what was happening when North Korea tested a new missile on May 4 that is considered to be similar to the Russian Iskander, a nuclear-capable missile that flies lower than the short-range ballistic missiles North Korea tested before.

“A ballistic missile leaves the earth’s atmosphere and glides back down,” Bechtol said. “This [test] missile does not, as far as I can tell, leave the Earth’s atmosphere. It operates more like a cruise missile than a ballistic missile.”

A cruise missile flies on a relatively straight line and at a lower altitude than a ballistic missile, which arcs up before curving down toward a target.

​Russian-like missile poses challenges

Experts said if the new missile is modeled after the Iskander, it could pose multiple challenges and could exploit gaps in the existing missile-defense coverage in South Korea. 

The new missile’s “flattened flight path” toward a target “makes it difficult to intercept” with current defense systems, said Michael Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The North Korean version of the Iskander does not fly higher than 50 kilometers and can travel a ground distance as far as 280 kilometers, according to Elleman.

But THAAD and the Aegis SM-3 interceptor operate at an altitude above 50 kilometers, and the Patriot system’s effective intercepting range is at an altitude of about 25 to 30 kilometers with the Patriot variant PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor extending its flight to an altitude of about 40 kilometers.

That leaves “a gap in interceptor coverage” of at least 10 kilometers between the missile defense systems that operate at roughly 40 to 50 kilometers, said Ellemen. “The Iskander spends most of its flight path in this gap, making it difficult to intercept.”

The Iskander can fly at a high speed, presenting another challenge for the current missile defense system.

Bennett said, “The Iskander flies perhaps 20-25 percent faster than the Scud,” a series of tactical ballistic missiles that could travel five times the speed of sound, potentially capable of reaching South Korea in about five minutes, Bennett said.

“THAAD and the SM-3 on the Aegis [equipped] ships should be able to handle this speed. [But] the Iskander flies low, [a] potential challenge for THAAD and the SM-3,” he added.

Most accurate North Korean missile

The Iskander can be mounted on mobile launch platforms, meaning it can be moved and fired quickly.

“It’s a solid fuel missile,” Bechtol said, explaining that the fuel can be loaded ahead of launch “and moved much more quickly than liquid-fuel missiles.” The latter need fueling just before launch.

The Iskander’s maneuverability also makes it difficult for THAAD, Aegis SM-3, and the Patriot system to intercept.

“The Iskander has fins mounted at the back of the missile, which allow it to maneuver during the entire flight,” Ellemen explained. “This makes it much more difficult to predict an intercept location and launches the interceptor on the optimal path for an engagement resulting in destruction of the threat.”

Bechtol said, “It would be the most accurate missile the North Koreans have ever had, so accurate that they could actually fire out … [and] target barracks, flight lines for aircraft, headquarter buildings.”

With the missile test, “the North Koreans are showing us that they have a missile [with which] they can accurately target Osan Air Base or Camp Humphreys in a very real, in a very dangerous way,” Bechtol said, citing American installations in South Korea.

“They were able to keep in accordance with the agreement they made with [President Donald] Trump, and at the same time, threaten the United States and South Korea in a very compelling way,” he added.

When the Pyongyang government began talks with Washington last year, it pledged to suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests.

​Complicated political situation

Merging South Korean and U.S. missile defense systems could be hampered by the political situation in South Korea, according to Maxwell. Public attitudes have changed little since 2017, when hundreds of South Korean citizens protested the installation of THAAD at a U.S. military south of Seoul.

“I just don’t see the political will for that in South Korea among majority of the people or the current rule and government,” Maxwell said.

Bennett said a North Korean missile that slipped under defense systems could devastate the peninsula, depending on the type of warhead it carried, “… which in theory could be conventional, nuclear or chemical,” he said. “So the defense would turn to passive defense: protecting people in shelters with masks and protective clothing.”

According to Maxwell, a variant of the Patriot interceptor, the PACT 3 Guidance Enhanced Missile (GEM-T) under the U.S. missile defense system in South Korea is better able “to defeat tactical ballistic missiles and aircraft and cruise missiles” and could potentially intercept the new kind of missile North Korea tested.
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Kim Dong-hyun of the VOA Korean Service contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — South Korea should integrate its missile defense system with that of the U.S. to maximize the combined capabilities to counter a potential incoming flight of North Korea’s missiles across the border, experts said in the wake of Pyongyang’s two missile launches in early May.

South Korea’s missile defense system and the U.S. antimissile defense system deployed in South Korea are coordinated but operate independently.

“The whole system would work better if it was fully integrated, if it was a completely combined operation,” said Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now a professor at Angelo State University in Texas.

​Why not integrate systems?

The lack of integration is rooted in regional history. The South Korean government, whether it was conservative or liberal, never merged its system with the U.S. system for political reasons, in part, because integrating it would mean joining the U.S. missile defense alliance in the region that includes Japan, South Korea’s colonial adversary toward which South Korea’s public sentiment has been historically antagonistic, according to Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp. research center.

Streamlining the command and control of the two missile defense systems with autonomous command and control would cut the time needed to analyze data, share information, and cue the proper system for targeting and intercepting an incoming missile, according to David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and current fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

On May 17, the Pentagon announced the U.S. had approved a $314 million sale of air defense missiles to South Korea.

South Korea’s missile defense system, termed the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), includes Aegis and Patriot systems, and is designed to protect South Korea from missiles that fly at different altitudes and distance by detecting, tracking and intercepting incoming missiles in the air. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), which currently falls under the U.S. missile defense system, is also deployed in South Korea.

Aegis, a sea-based missile defense system, and THAAD are area defense weapons that have the capabilities to defend wide areas against missiles that fly high altitudes. And, the Patriot system, known as pointed defense weapons, can intercept missiles directed against smaller areas such as air base, according to Maxwell.

​No perfect defense

But they don’t provide a perfect defense that prevents missiles from getting through, he added.

“There’s no impenetrable shield,” Maxwell said. “There [is] always going to be a gap, a seam, a weakness, that the enemy is always trying to exploit and defenders are always trying to fix and find a better way. This is constantly a game of where capabilities continue to evolve.”

This was part of what was happening when North Korea tested a new missile on May 4 that is considered to be similar to the Russian Iskander, a nuclear-capable missile that flies lower than the short-range ballistic missiles North Korea tested before.

“A ballistic missile leaves the earth’s atmosphere and glides back down,” Bechtol said. “This [test] missile does not, as far as I can tell, leave the Earth’s atmosphere. It operates more like a cruise missile than a ballistic missile.”

A cruise missile flies on a relatively straight line and at a lower altitude than a ballistic missile, which arcs up before curving down toward a target.

​Russian-like missile poses challenges

Experts said if the new missile is modeled after the Iskander, it could pose multiple challenges and could exploit gaps in the existing missile-defense coverage in South Korea. 

The new missile’s “flattened flight path” toward a target “makes it difficult to intercept” with current defense systems, said Michael Elleman, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The North Korean version of the Iskander does not fly higher than 50 kilometers and can travel a ground distance as far as 280 kilometers, according to Elleman.

But THAAD and the Aegis SM-3 interceptor operate at an altitude above 50 kilometers, and the Patriot system’s effective intercepting range is at an altitude of about 25 to 30 kilometers with the Patriot variant PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor extending its flight to an altitude of about 40 kilometers.

That leaves “a gap in interceptor coverage” of at least 10 kilometers between the missile defense systems that operate at roughly 40 to 50 kilometers, said Ellemen. “The Iskander spends most of its flight path in this gap, making it difficult to intercept.”

The Iskander can fly at a high speed, presenting another challenge for the current missile defense system.

Bennett said, “The Iskander flies perhaps 20-25 percent faster than the Scud,” a series of tactical ballistic missiles that could travel five times the speed of sound, potentially capable of reaching South Korea in about five minutes, Bennett said.

“THAAD and the SM-3 on the Aegis [equipped] ships should be able to handle this speed. [But] the Iskander flies low, [a] potential challenge for THAAD and the SM-3,” he added.

Most accurate North Korean missile

The Iskander can be mounted on mobile launch platforms, meaning it can be moved and fired quickly.

“It’s a solid fuel missile,” Bechtol said, explaining that the fuel can be loaded ahead of launch “and moved much more quickly than liquid-fuel missiles.” The latter need fueling just before launch.

The Iskander’s maneuverability also makes it difficult for THAAD, Aegis SM-3, and the Patriot system to intercept.

“The Iskander has fins mounted at the back of the missile, which allow it to maneuver during the entire flight,” Ellemen explained. “This makes it much more difficult to predict an intercept location and launches the interceptor on the optimal path for an engagement resulting in destruction of the threat.”

Bechtol said, “It would be the most accurate missile the North Koreans have ever had, so accurate that they could actually fire out … [and] target barracks, flight lines for aircraft, headquarter buildings.”

With the missile test, “the North Koreans are showing us that they have a missile [with which] they can accurately target Osan Air Base or Camp Humphreys in a very real, in a very dangerous way,” Bechtol said, citing American installations in South Korea.

“They were able to keep in accordance with the agreement they made with [President Donald] Trump, and at the same time, threaten the United States and South Korea in a very compelling way,” he added.

When the Pyongyang government began talks with Washington last year, it pledged to suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests.

​Complicated political situation

Merging South Korean and U.S. missile defense systems could be hampered by the political situation in South Korea, according to Maxwell. Public attitudes have changed little since 2017, when hundreds of South Korean citizens protested the installation of THAAD at a U.S. military south of Seoul.

“I just don’t see the political will for that in South Korea among majority of the people or the current rule and government,” Maxwell said.

Bennett said a North Korean missile that slipped under defense systems could devastate the peninsula, depending on the type of warhead it carried, “… which in theory could be conventional, nuclear or chemical,” he said. “So the defense would turn to passive defense: protecting people in shelters with masks and protective clothing.”

According to Maxwell, a variant of the Patriot interceptor, the PACT 3 Guidance Enhanced Missile (GEM-T) under the U.S. missile defense system in South Korea is better able “to defeat tactical ballistic missiles and aircraft and cruise missiles” and could potentially intercept the new kind of missile North Korea tested.
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