JAPAN – U.S. BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE JOINT STATEMENT OF THE SECURITY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE (SCC) TO DETER NORTH KOREA’S BALLISTIC MISSILES PROGRAM (2015-2019)

Abstract

Asia-Pacific region has a highly complex geopolitics and strategic environment with the fact that political confrontation and conflicts remain unsolved within the region, which include North Korea’s ballistic missiles program and its development. North Korea’s ballistic missiles program has become a rapid growing threat for the global security. Its lack of accountability about its nuclear and ballistic missile program and erratic leadership of Kim Jong-Un have also projected threats for the United States and its allies, including for Japan. Moreover, Japan – U.S. alliance has been able to become a remarkable resilient security partnership and has served as the cornerstone for the region’s stability. Both countries have conducted many defense cooperation in several areas, including for ballistic missiles defense cooperation. As one of the forms of the ballistic missiles defense cooperation between Japan and the U.S., the Security Consultative Committee (SCC) as the alliance’s primary decision-making forum produces joint statement which also highlights the ballistic missiles defense cooperation of Japan and the U.S. to deter North Korea’s ballistic missiles program. Therefore, in this research the writer would like to further analyze the implementation of the joint statement of the SCC in deterring North Korea’s ballistic missiles program, particularly the joint statement in the period of 2015 to 2019. In analyzing that, this research is using the qualitative methodology that relies on the primary and secondary resources which find that Japan and the U.S. did implement their agreed cooperation on the joint statement of the SCC by doing the joint development as well as capabilities enhancement for their ballistic missiles defense system.