A prototype FPS-XX radar, designed and built by the Japanese Defense Agency's Technical Research & Development Institute, monitored the test firing of a ballistic missile launched from a Russian nuclear-powered submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk 1,000 miles to the northeast. The radar then tracked the missile's flight for thousands of miles across northern Russia to the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean, the Defense Agency said.

A senior Defense Agency official was pleased with the radar's performance.

"Although it [the missile] was in the outer limit of the radar's capability, the result was up to our expectations," he said. "The accuracy of the data was good enough for us to pass on to the U.S. military."

The 100-foot-tall radar was deployed on the top of a hill in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported Monday.

From fiscal 2008, FPS-XX radar units will be deployed at four sites across the country. Together with the X-band radar -- the U.S. forces' mobile early warning radar system -- and other equipment, the FPS-XX radar system is a major part of Japan's rapidly expanding defense system.

A mid-range ballistic missile launched from the Asian continent can reach Japan in 10 minutes. A senior Self-Defense Forces officer told Yomiuri Shimbun, "When every second counts, quickly obtaining accurate information is a life-or-death matter for national defense."

In an interim report on the realignment of U.S. forces stationed in Japan, Tokyo and Washington decided to set up a joint operation management office and relocate the Air Self-Defense Force's Air Defense Command to Yokota Air Base, the headquarters of U.S. forces in Japan, Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The Yokota base in Kanagawa Prefecture will function as the control center of the missile defense system and other air defense facilities in Japan. It will also play a key role in boosting SIGINT or signals intelligence cooperation between Japan and the United States, the paper said.

Japan is particularly concerned about receiving SIGINT obtained by U.S. surveillance satellites prior to ballistic missile launches in real time. Japan's own satellite surveillance program has previously been plagued by long delays, cost over-runs and technical failures.

Currently, the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado collects such data and relays it to the Defense Agency via Yokota Air Base. It is expected that such data will be passed on more quickly once the planned joint operation headquarters is established, Yomiuri Shimbun said.

--

Poland's new PM wants to join MDI

Poland's pro-American new prime minister announced Monday that he wants his country to be protected by U.S. BMD forces. And he has launched a national debate to convince the public to agree with him.

Polls have shown that while the Polish population is overwhelmingly critical of U.S. policy in Iraq, it is strongly in favor of ballistic missile defense.

Conservative Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has lost no time in trying to take advantage of that fact. Only four days after being approved in power by parliament he told a news conference in Warsaw Monday, "We have opened a public debate on the issue."

Marcinkiewicz's statement marks a dramatic victory for the Bush administration and appears to part of a strong swing to the pro-American political right in Europe. It comes right after Christian Democratic Union leader Angela Merkel was finally confirmed as chancellor of Germany, replacing Gerhard Schroeder, who had been a leading critic of U.S. policies. And it also occurs when President Jacques Chirac is under heavy criticism in France over the wave of race riots that have swept the country.

Marcinkiewicz's predecessors had rejected joining the U.S. Missile Defense Initiative. But Marcinkiewicz has appointed as his defense minister Radek Sikorski, the strongly pro-American former head of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington to spearhead the program.

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SBX passes Gulf of Mexico tests

The Missile Defense Agency's Sea-Based X-Band Radar has completed an ambitious and vigorous series of tests in the Gulf of Mexico -- and it dodged two Category 5 hurricanes too.

In a 52-day deployment that started in late August and only ended on Oct. 14, the SBX completed more than 100 major test activities. A delighted Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, director of the MDA, said it had demonstrated the ability to achieve most of its major operational and sustainment capabilities.

During the trials, the gigantic SBX, which towers 282-feet high and weighs more than 50,000 tons, tested its ability to operate at sea for major periods of time, the MDA said. It also took evasive action to avoid Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The SBX will have to sail all the way around South America and Cape Horn to reach its future homeport of Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands chain.

Built by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems and with its X-band radar developed and manufactured by Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, the enormous Sea-Based X-Band Radar is a crucial component of the new Alaska-based Anti-Ballistic Missile interceptor system. It is designed to identify and discriminate decoys and countermeasures used by hostile incoming missiles.

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