President Trump Wanted Japan to Shoot Down North Korean Missile Flying Over Japan

This is something that many people who don’t understand missile defense think until they realize the physics behind it:

U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.

The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.

Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.

The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said.  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but the reason is quite simple why the missiles were not shot down.  The missile were flying 770 kilometers above the country in outer space; this is higher than the international space station.  The Japanese Aegis ships and Patriot interceptors cannot engage missiles flying that high. To shoot down the missiles the Aegis ship would have to be located out in the ocean where the missile was coming down at.  There is no way the Japanese would could have known when and where North Korea was going to fire the missile at to have a ship sitting there waiting to shoot it down.

The real story here is why are diplomatic sources leaking this information to the news media?  This is a natural question that many people wondered initially after North Korea fired the missile over Japan.  I would hope by now someone has briefed President Trump on missile defense capabilities.