in order to counter military threat from North Korea, Japan's Defence Agency plans to set up research on a system to shoot down ballistic missiles. The Japanese intend to borrow technology from the us Department of Defence, which is developing a similar programme called the Theater High Altitude Area Defence System ( thaads ).

Missile launches will be tracked by satellite, then intercepted by missiles launched from warships stationed in the Sea of Japan. That means shooting down a small target, travelling at around 3 km per second, within 10 minutes