[AnimalMuppet]

> Well, USA never did anything about Israel, Pakistan, India.

Under current circumstances, neither Israel nor India are going to even try to attack the US. Pakistan might be tempted, but I believe they don't have a ballistic missile capable of reaching the US. So there was less reason to do anything about them. (Iran, now, is more worrying.)

> If someone in Japan or South Korea think the same, that they are truly protected with this shield...

But I don't think anybody believes that. Could it stop a North Korean nuke? Hopefully, yes. Is anyone confident enough to want to try it? I doubt it; nobody believes that ABM defenses are anything like 100% reliable.

> And btw North Korea probably has more that just 1-10 or even 100 nukes at this point.

I think it's about 10-20 warheads. Do they have 10-20 ICBMs that are operational? I doubt it, but I don't know for certain.

[varren]

Well, you may be right, it is just a matter of interpretation. But when it comes to defence in international relations it is basically a variation of Prisoner's dilemma[1]. It doesn't matter what reasons USA has to develop ABM. Russia, China, NK and everyone else will never choose to disarm when their oponent is arming.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#In_intern...