The U.S. military wants to send a sophisticated missile defense system to South Korea "as quickly as possible," the Pentagon said Monday, February 8, as it seeks to counter an ever-defiant North Korea, AFP reports.

After Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket on Sunday, South Korean and U.S. military officials said they would start formal discussions on placing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) on the North's doorstep.

"Without getting into a timeline, we'd like to see this move as quickly as possible," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said of a possible THAAD deployment.

"We are beginning the consultations now and in the current days with the South Koreans, and we expect that this will move in an expeditious fashion."

America's highly deployable THAAD system fires anti-ballistic missiles into the sky to smash into enemy missiles either inside or outside the Earth's atmosphere during their final flight phase.

The interceptor missiles carry no warheads, instead relying on kinetic energy to destroy their targets.

Cook stressed the missile defense system was in no way meant to pose a threat to China.

"If the THAAD system were deployed to the Korean Peninsula, it would be focused solely on North Korea, contribute to a layered missile defense that would enhance the alliance's existing missile defense capabilities against potential North Korean missile threats," he said.