America has a three layered antiballistic missile defense system that would knock out any North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) if it was determined to be hostile to either the United States or it’s allies. Just as America has it’s nuclear weapons triad including intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and nuclear armed submarines, the U.S. also has a three layered system of missile defense. The United States antiballistic missile triad can destroy an enemy intercontinental ballistic missile either in the boost phase, flight phase or the terminal phase of it’s trajectory. This triad ensures any North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile that is launched in a conflict will never hit the United States.

Boost Phase:

The boost phase of an intercontinental ballistic missile’s flight pattern starts when it leaves the launch pad and ends when the missile reaches space. This is the best time to hit a missile since it leaves the clean up, nuclear or otherwise, to country who launched it and provides a bit of plausible deniability. Airborne or Seaborne Laser systems are able to hit an intercontinental ballistic missile directly above the launch site or at any time before it reaches space. Examples of this such as the Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Test 747 used a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) that took up the entire body of the modified Boeing 747 fuselage. Capable of hitting targets many 100s of miles away by directing a powerful laser to side of the missile causing it to heat up and explode. This weapon system was first tested back in 2004. The Boeing YAL-1 had many successful tests, even engaging to two missiles in the boost phase in one experiment, until it’s retirement in 2011. Retirement for the Boeing YAL-1 means it was just a prototype and lessons learned would be applied to future airborne laser systems. The technology developed in this demonstrator would later be applied to drone aircraft. Most systems now employ a solid state laser that is much smaller and more powerful. The YAL-1 airborne laser generated a kilowatt of laser power per 55 kilograms of weight. New solid state airborne lasers can field a kilowatt of power per 35 kilograms and do not need to store heavy chemical on board. Allowing a much smaller air frame to carry the system. Possibly using stealth drone aircraft such as the RQ-180 that has increased loiter time and cannot be seen on radar. Able to stay over enemy countries undetected for long periods of time with no risk to a human pilot. The solid state laser takes it’s power from the aircraft engines. Having an unlimited magazine of ammo as long as it can be refueled in mid air. Tested and possibly all ready in use over the Korean peninsula as many North Korean missiles have simply blown up miles above the launch pad. Multiple missiles launched at the same time by North Korea have blown up before reaching the outer atmosphere. This started back in April 2017 with several strings of mysterious “missile failures” by North Korea that fit the profile of covert Airborne or Seaborne Laser missile interceptions.

Flight Phase:

The flight phase of an intercontinental ballistic missile begins when it reaches space after the boost phase is complete and it is on a fairly predictable path. This is the only type of missile defense that is officially acknowledged by the U.S. and it’s allies being a hold over from the Star Wars Defense Initiative from the eighties. These land and sea based kinetic interceptor antiballistic missile systems can intercept a intercontinental ballistic missile in the flight phase of it’s trajectory. It has been tested successfully over 16 times even shooting down a satellite in 2008 after being launched from the USS Lake Erie in Operation Burnt Frost. Developed by Raytheon the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) or RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 BLOCK series SM-3 boosted kinetic interceptor is operated by both the U.S. and Japanese navy with it’s land based equivalents stationed in California and Alaska as well as eastern Europe. This Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system can protect entire countries. All of these systems rely on kinetic interceptors launched from the ground that have no explosives but hit the target at such high speed the target is literally vaporized from the incredible impact in space. Like hitting a bullet with a bullet the kinetic interceptor is now guided by the powerful AN/TPY-2 radar. AN/TPY-2s and other equivalent X-band radars are deployed globally in both land and sea-based mode and can track multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles guiding the impactor directly to it’s target. Any rogue North Korean missile threatening the continental United States or it’s allies would easily be taken down by this system even if multiple warheads were launched.

Terminal Phase:

The terminal phase of an intercontinental ballistic missile’s trajectory starts with reentry into the earth’s atmosphere and ends when it hits it’s target. This is the most dangerous phase to intercept a missile since it is moving at such high speed and if a nuclear warhead were on board it might make a messy situation for the target country. Systems such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) or Israel’s Iron Dome can protect a smaller theatres of operations such as Seoul South Korea from intermediate range missiles in the terminal phase but lacks the range to protect entire countries and still relies on interceptors.

A much speculated solution for disabling a missile in it’s terminal phase is the use of powerful radar to produce ionospheric heating as in HAARP technology to literally extent the Earth’s ionosphere out into space creating a pocket of plasma that the missile must travel through. Superheated plasma ions interfere with the missile’s guidance systems and the bulge of atmosphere produces frictional sheering forces that would tear the missile apart. Although this technology is officially denied for military use it is a publically known capability of phased array radars systems such as HAARP that have been researched by the U.S. Navy and Air force for years. Among many other incredible capabilities to numerous to mention here.

“This invention has a phenomenal variety of possible ramifications and potential future developments. As alluded to earlier, missile or aircraft destruction, deflection, or confusion could result, particularly when relativistic particles are employed. Also, large regions of the atmosphere could be lifted to an unexpectedly high altitude so that missiles encounter unexpected and unplanned drag forces with resultant destruction or deflection of same” Inventor of HAARP Bernard J. Eastlund’s U.S. Patent # US4686605 A

The AN/TPY-2 and other equivalent X-band radars could easily reproduce these effects and are deployed on land, warships and even floating platforms around the world. Modern X-band radars are a more powerful type of phased array radar than HAARP with a lot more capability when used in conjunction with one another. Creating a plasma shield and a thicker atmosphere that could protect large areas of the Earth’s surface from incoming missiles or even small asteroids. It has long been rumored that such a system exists and this is possibly why the U.S. as well as Russia have developed a next generation of hardened intercontinental ballistic missiles that can steer around or through various electronic countermeasures

No one wants another war on the Korean peninsula which would cost hundreds of thousands of lives probably in the first hours as artillery would rain down on Seoul South Korea from the demilitarized zone only thirty miles away. Rest assured if North Korea starts a war or continues to threaten America and it’s allies with hydrogen bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, Kim Jong Un may find himself way in over his head. None of the crude intercontinental ballistic missiles that North Korea produces would ever hit the United States having to go through this gauntlet of countermeasures built over the last sixty years by the most technologically powerful nation on Earth.

Sources:

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-airborne-laser-may-rise-again-but-it-will-look-very-1724892313

https://breakingdefense.com/2015/08/return-of-the-abl-missile-defense-agency-works-on-laser-drone/

http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2015-12-10-Land-Based-SM-3-demonstrates-first-ballistic-missile-intercept-supported-by-AN-TPY-2-radar

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/sm-3/

https://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2013/nrl-scientists-produce-densest-artificial-ionospheric-plasma-clouds-using-haarp

https://www.google.com/patents/US4686605