Reply #24: I'm referring to missile tests

[rockymountaindem]

Japan was threatening to shoot down the missile because North Korea fired one right over Tokyo Narita Airport during the 1990s with no warning at all. Japan doesn't trust North Korea, with whom they have many outstanding issues. North Korea warned that if Japan tried to shoot down the missile, which the Japanese evidently have the capability to do, they would consider it an act of war. In the last couple of months, the DPRK has threatened war against the ROK on more than one occasion. Japan didn't like what they were seeing or hearing.

The US' record has nothing to do with this particular showdown. It's a flare up of regional tension in an already nerve-wracked region.