WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump unveiled a "revised" missile defense strategy on Thursday to improve security for the United States, including deploying a new layer of space sensors to monitor and track enemy missiles amid Russian and Chinese concerns.
The strategy, according to US newspapers, will recommend experimental techniques that include possible possibilities for deploying weapons in space that may be capable of dropping enemy missiles, in return to the initiative of former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s known as Star Wars.
"I think space is the key to the next step of missile defense," a senior Trump management official told reporters before issuing the document on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The deployment of a layer of sensors in space is something we are thinking about to help us provide early warning and track the missiles when they are launched and discriminated."
The official stressed that the feasibility of the idea of deploying space-based missile defense weapons is still under consideration and no decisions have been taken.
The official stressed that the feasibility of the idea of deploying space-based missile defense weapons is still under consideration and no decisions have been taken.
Russia is developing a threat to US missile defense, and the Trump report will probably fuel tensions with Moscow.
China has worried the Pentagon about its advances in supersonic velocity technology, and Beijing has been able to deploy its monitoring missiles much harder.
But US officials, including Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin, believe the space sensor layer may help monitor missiles moving at supersonic speeds.
US military officials have long stressed that US missile defenses are designed primarily to deter attacks from countries with smaller arsenals, such as North Korea, which US intelligence officials believe is still developing its nuclear program despite a halt to rocket attacks last year.
North Korea's threat
For Trump, who is trying to revive efforts to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal, the timing of the report is strange.
According to South Korean media, three North Korean officials, including a senior envoy in talks with the United States, plan to go to Washington, signaling a possible move to a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump is scheduled to speak at the Pentagon at 11 am local time (1600 GMT).
