In 2005, Japanese government agreed to offer the USA , for a limited time beginning in May 2006, the land of 63,000㎡ and a building of 130㎡ for its deployment of the world-first TPY-2 radar in the sub base of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force in Shariki ( in the city of Tsugaru, Aomori ), a town in the northern part of the main land of Japan, with a population of 5,500, facing the Sea of Japan.

The reasons why Shariki was picked up for the deployment are supposedly these:

1. This area is the best for the surveillance at the earliest stage possible of a probable Taepodong-2 launch from the North Korea(DPRK) (* As has been turned out, it does not work that way for Japan.)

2. As this town is faced with the Sea of Japan, there is no jamming in between from the radar to the North Korea.

3. In Misawa, a nearby city in the same prefecture, there is a base of ASDF as well as an American base, thus ensuring the aerial security around the radar would be much easier.

4. There might be few, if any, opposition movements in this under-populated town with a small administrative budget.

This X-band radar (TPY-2 , or FBX-T :Forward-Based X-band radar Transportable) is small enough to be loaded on a truck and has a shorter range of the missile detection, probably a few thousand km, compared with a much bigger fixed type planned for deployment in the Czech Republic with a long range of 5,000 km.

However, its early detection capability is supreme merit for the USA.  Concerned people in Shariki had asked about its possible impacts on the atmosphere and their life, and the Ministry of Defense answered that the presumable impacts of jamming and high-heat radiation would be little due to its little power output and its deployment direction.  However, in a related paper by the Pentagon, it is written that TV sets and radios within the radius of 10 km could be affected, and that in case an airplane or a wild bird is directly exposed to its electromagnetic radiation, it may be affected.

Along with the deployment, a limited-flight zone was demanded by the US for an indefinite period of time around the radar site, that is, in the western half of a column-like aerial space with a radius of 6 km and a height of 19,000 feet, no flying is allowed.

Because of the military integration arising from the MD system in Japan including radar deployment and the relocation of the US force in the Pacific region, the US force in Japan and the SDF has been actually integrated, which has resulted in the intensive deployment of strike fighters both in the US base and in the SDF base, totaling 80 combined, in the city of Misawa, close to Shariki.

This X-band radar in Shariki could not detect any of the seven missile launches from the North Korea in July, 2006.

This was because its detecting area had been set much higher in space than the radars of Japan.  Thus one may naturally question the official announcement, made by the SDF of the Ministry of Defense, regarding the purpose of the X-band at the time of its deployment, which said, “ the purpose of this X-band radar is to support our capability of intercepting a ballistic missile coming towards Japan, and our ability of protecting Japanese people or of dealing with damages.”

It can be said that this radar is for early detection of a missile towards Hawaii or Guam, or even the main land of the USA, not towards Japan.

There are some 100 people working on this radar in Shariki, among whom there are only two US soldiers.

The rest are about 40 staff members from Raytheon, and some 60 from Chenega Blackwater Solutions who are in charge of guarding the radar site.  To all the technical and security staff members, the US-Japan status agreement which stipulates the privilege of the US Forces stationed in Japan is applicable. So, even if an employee of these private companies living in Shariki commits a crime or an accident, as long as he is on duty, he is treated as a civilian employee of the US Forces, exempt from the first trial on the part of Japan.

PAC3 deployment in Japan