If North Korea tests missile, might US shoot it down?

[Renew Deal]

North Korea’s movement of two missiles toward its east coast means it may be preparing for a test launch, according to South Korean officials. Such an action would be a thumb in the eye of its adversaries and could escalate existing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The missile in question appears to be a medium-range model known to the US and its allies as a “Musudan.” Apparently based on an old Soviet submarine-launched ballistic weapon, the Musudan is a liquid-fueled road-mobile model with an estimated range of about 1,800 miles. Though it may have been fired as a stage of a long-range ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), the US is doubtful the Musudan system itself has ever been fully tested.
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Shooting down a test missile would play into North Korea’s depiction of its ongoing “war” with South Korea and the US, says Mr. Lopez. Allowing it to pass unharmed could prompt unified regional condemnation that works in US officials’ favor.

Would the US really feel it necessary to take aim at a North Korean test launch?

“I would hope and expect not,” says Lopez in an e-mail. “But if we are moving that kind of technology into the neighborhood AND we think [North Korea] needs to get a strong message AND we don’t want our two allies in the region to do it THEN the possibility increases.”
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0405/If-North-Korea-tests-missile-might-US-shoot-it-down

[leveymg]

1. Wouldn't be the first time. Far from it.

[winter is coming]

2. I hope not, since I doubt we'd hit it. n/t

[longship]

3. Well, given US success in this area, I hope not.

ABMs are a dodgy technology on a good day. The last thing the US needs to do is to punctuate a launch of one of North Korea's lousy missiles with a demonstration in view to the entire world of the failure, in principle, of ABM technology.

Actually, were it not for the fact that the DPRK would see it as a provocation, I kind of wish the world would see first hand the utter madness born of Star Wars technology.