U.S. Recent Plans in National Air Defense: The East Asia Dimension

... Pentagon’s desire to create a broad regional missile defense infrastructure in Asia Pacific to meet the country’s unique nuclear deterrence needs [ 5 ]. Notably, no country of East Asia, in whole or in part, has ever expressed its intentions to unprovokedly ... ... missile tests. The Japanese leadership never ruled out the acquisition of THAAD systems, but the final decision has not yet been made, especially since the Americans may well deploy their own battery on Okinawa if necessary. In 2020, Japan refused to build ...