U.S. bolsters Asia ballistic missile
defense as Trump-Kim summit nears
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[May 22, 2018]
By Tim Kelly
YOKOSUKA, Japan (Reuters) - The USS Milius,
one of the U.S. Navy's most advanced guided missile destroyers, arrived
in Japan on Tuesday to reinforce defenses against any ballistic missile
attacks by North Korea, or anyone else in East Asia.
The warship's arrival at Yokosuka Naval Base comes three weeks before an
unprecedented meeting is supposed to take place in Singapore between
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The show of force is a reminder of the military pressure that can be
brought to bear on North Korea as the United States seeks to press it to
abandon its nuclear weapons and its ballistic missile program.
The deployment of the Milius to Japan was delayed by almost a year so it
could undergo upgrades to its Aegis air defense system to enhance its
ability to detect and target missiles.

Armed with missiles designed to shoot down warheads in space, the Milius
will be part of a naval destroyer force that would be the first U.S.
line of defense against any long-range ballistic missiles fired at it by
North Korea.
The force, under a security treaty between Japan and the United States,
would also defend Japan from attack.
"What the Milius has now is the latest and greatest upgrade for the
combat system," Commander Jennifer Pontius, the ship's captain, said in
Yokosuka after her ship docked.
"It creates increased capacity in various mission areas such as
ballistic missile defense, electronic warfare, undersea warfare and air
warfare."
The Milius's dockside welcome under a bright afternoon sky in Yokosuka,
the headquarters of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, came amid uncertainty over
whether the Trump-Kim meeting will go ahead.
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Military personnel are seen on the deck of the U.S. guided-missile
destroyer USS Milius (DDG69) at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka,
south of Tokyo, Japan May 22, 2018. REUTERS/Issei Kato

North Korea said last week it was reconsidering the summit after
calling off separate talks with South Korea in a protest over
U.S.-South Korean air combat drills known as Max Thunder.
North Korea said it would walk away from dialogue if the United
States insisted on it unilaterally abandoning its nuclear arsenal,
which it says it needs to defend itself against U.S. aggression.
Trump has warned that failure to reach a denuclearisation agreement
could lead to "decimation" of Kim's rule.
The Milius joins two other ships in the Seventh Fleet with similar
upgrades and reinforces the fleet after two other U.S. warships in
the region were crippled in collisions with commercial ships last
year.
With the Milius, the U.S. Navy has 13 ships based at Yokosuka,
including the USS Ronald Reagan, Washington's only forward deployed
carrier.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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