It looks like Korea is moving forward on their domestic missile defense system:

The Elta Green Pine early warning and fire control radar for the Arrow system. The radar can detect targets at ranges up to about 500km and is able to track targets at speeds over 3,000m/s.

An Israeli-developed missile detection radar system called Green Pine is a leading candidate in South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) for the country’s independent low-tier missile shield, The Korea Times reported Monday.

“The DAPA concluded negotiations with foreign bidders over the selection of the early-warning radar systems last week and believes the Israeli radar is the most suitable for the country’s theater missile shield in terms of price and capabilities,” an unnamed source was quoted by the paper as saying.

The Jerusalem Post could not independently confirm the Korea Times report.

If bought, the Green Pine system would become operational in South Korea by 2012. Two sets are scheduled to be bought by 2010.

Competing with Israel’s Green Pine system are the US-made X-Band radar and the French M3R radar.

The purchase of the Forward-Based X-Band Radar-Transportable (FBX-T) was impossible due to US law that forbids the export of the state-of-the-art weapons system, while the French

radar system failed to meet some operational requirements, the paper quoted sources as saying.

The US allowed one X-Band system to arrive in Israel’s Nevatim IAF base in September 2008 and the IDF uses intelligence collected from it. But it is operated by American personnel and can potentially also give the US knowledge of Israeli air traffic, whether civilian or military.

The Green Pine system was developed by the

Israeli company Elta, and in the IDF, it is used to guide the Arrow 2 Missile Defense system.  [Jerusalem Post]

You can read more about the Israeli Arrow 2 missile here.

The Korean government actually bought a very good radar even if the US was not offering the FBX-T radar to Korea.  The biggest difference between the two radars is detection range, which is part of the reason why Israel currently has a FBX-T fielded in the Negev desert right now to help deter a missile strike from Iran:

FBX-T Radar

In granting Israel the powerful FBX-T radar system to enhance its early warning resources against incoming missiles, Washington laid down a strict hands-off proviso. The system will be installed at a US base in the southern Israeli Negev. It will be off-limits to Israelis and managed exclusively by American personnel.  (….)

The FBX-T was requested to allow Israel’s Arrow missile defense system to engage a Shehab-3 missile about halfway through its 11-minute flight from Iran, several times sooner than the Arrow’s Green Pines radar is capable of doing.

The FBX-T can track objects in space such as a missile tipped with a chemical, germ or nuclear warhead.  (…..)

Barak and Ashkenazi said on their return from Washington that they had procured US consent to links between Israel’s early warning and missile interceptor systems, the X-band radar (which can pick up a missile 2,000 km from target) and also the American JTAGS satellites (which detects a missile launch).

Several billion dollars of US and Israeli funds have been sunk into developing the Arrow, which Israeli officials until recently claimed was a match for Iran’s Shehab-3 ballistic missiles. It turns out now that the Arrow and its Green Pine radar pick up incoming missiles only when they are 800 km short of their target. Israel applied for the FBX-T radar to extend that range to 2,000 km from its territory. But as long as the system is operated exclusively by American personnel, its usefulness for shielding Israel against enemy missiles will circumscribed.  [DEBKA]

Considering how small the Korean peninsula is, the Green Pine radar is more then adequate to detect missiles from North Korea. Additionally, Korea’s newly acquired KDX-III destroyers are AEGIS equipped and will provide additional radar coverage over North Korea along with the radars from the PATRIOT PAC-2 missile batteries that were bought from Germany last year.

However, keep in mind that Korea will still be depended on the US JTAGS which is a system that uses infrared satellites to detect missile launches to be able to receive early warning of a missile launch unless the Koreans develop their own system.  The JTAGS system is currently fielded at Osan Airbase.

What will be interesting to see is if USFK is willing to redeploy its own PATRIOT missile batteries which are more advanced then the Korean PAC-2 missiles and leave missile defense to the Koreans when their new missile defense system is operational by 2012.  There is currently an entire US Army PATRIOT brigade stationed in Korea, which would be a sizeable reduction in troops if they were to redeploy.

So far I have seen no indication that this will happen and personally would be surprised if the brigade is withdrawn.