PACOM Chief Warns Of Threat To Guam; China Presses Hard

“China has a profound advantage in ballistic missiles against the United States,” he said. “They also have a profound advantage in ground-launched cruise missiles. We have to get into that offensive force game as well.”

By   PAUL MCLEARY

on September 18, 2020 at 3:22 PM

Aegis Ashore test launch

WASHINGTON: The head of the Indo-Pacific Command issued a stark warning Thursday that large US bases in the Pacific remain outgunned, and underprepared, to defend against China’s massive stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles.

“China has a profound advantage in ballistic missiles against the United States,” Adm. Phil Davidson said during an online talk hosted by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “They also have a profound advantage in ground-launched cruise missiles. We have to get into that offensive force game as well.”

A more pressing concern than building up US offensive firepower is protecting the massive American base at Guam, which has been a key jumping off and resupply point for US ships, bombers, and Marines for decades.

 “There are billions of dollars in defense capability on Guam” alone, Davidson said. “There needs to be some investment in defending that” from Chinese weapons.

The thin line of defenses aimed at stopping ballistic and cruise missiles from striking Guam has long been a driving concern for Davidson, and he’s asked repeatedly for the Aegis Ashore air defense system to be built on the island. The base’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile defense battery can only see in a 120-degree range — and it’s looking toward North Korea.

“It’s going to require a much deeper, 360-degree persistent capability,” he said. “It is not necessarily about designing or creating a defensive system that is impenetrable or invulnerable against the entire missile inventory of a potential adversary. Rather it is about developing a combat credible deterrent.”

The admiral underscored that Guam needs that protection now and he isn’t interested in waiting years for an exquisite solution. “We can’t wait for some perfect solution to manifest itself in 2035 or 2040. We are in the threat environment now,” he said. Davidson’s focus on getting the $1.7 billion Aegis system set up in Guam isn’t new. In july he submitted a proposal to Congress to fund the work to get it to Guam by 2026. 

Davidson, who warned several years ago of the “great wall of SAMs” China has emplaced in the South China Sea, maintained that Chinese superiority in the region hasn’t waned.

“The vast capacity that China possesses when it comes to land-based cruise missiles and ground-based conventional missiles and where they are headed with ground-based hypersonic missiles represents an offensive threat throughout the region,” Davidson said, noting that shouldn’t just worry American policymakers, but their allies in the region as well. 

The US can begin building new types of offensive missiles in the wake of its having walked away from the INF Treaty with Russia earlier this year, and has already tested a prototype ballistic missile that flew more than the previous limit of 500km.

Big bases, big problems

Davidson’s calls for billions more to defend sprawling, legacy bases in the Pacific shines a light on the Pentagon’s biggest strength, and perhaps greatest weakness, in the Pacific region. Tens of thousands of sailors, Marines, soldiers and Airmen are stationed across the region in a footprint unrivaled by any other nation.

But those big bases are also well within range of the kinds of Chinese precision weapons the admiral talked about, and would expect to take the first hit in the first hours of any conflict, potentially setting back or curtailing the US response.

The Marine Corps and Navy have been working on plans to disperse some of those forces to the expent possible, with Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger leading the charge.

Berger has already done away with the service’s tanks and some helicopter squadrons to invest in his own precision artillery capabilities, pushing for the reformation of some units as Littoral Regiments designed to move fast with their own integrated anti-air and, possibly, anti-ship weapons. The Corps and Navy are also looking to buy as many as 30 Light Amphibious Warships in coming years, which would be much smaller than their current hulking amphibious ships. 

The Marines are also testing unmanned platforms to quickly refuel and rearm F-35Bs it plans to operate out of remote, austere bases in the Pacific — part of an effort to be more nimble, and unpredictable, as the traditional American dominance at sea and in the air erodes. 

On the Navy side, the service has already invested in a new frigate design, and is considering even smaller corvettes that could replace the current Littoral Combat Ships.

Arms to Taiwan  

Tensions have spiked in the region over the past year, as American and Chinese ships and aircraft have jockeyed to assert dominance in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

One potential flashpoint is Taiwan. On Friday, China unexpectedly flew 18 fighter jets and bombers into the Taiwan Strait just as Keith Krach, Commerce undersecretary for economic affairs, became the most senior American official to visit the independent island in decades. He arrived ahead of a memorial service for former President Lee Teng-hui. 

Visits by American dignitaries aren’t the only thing rattling Beijing when it comes to the warming US relationship with Taiwan. Recent reports indicate the Trump administration is eager to sell hundreds of millions worth of new weapons to the island that would go farther than previous defensive weapons sales from previous administrations. 

Under consideration are the air-to-ground AGM-84H missile that can be launched from Taiwanese F-16 fighters to hit ships in the Taiwan Strait, or even targets on the mainland. 

Last year, the Trump administration announced it was selling 66 F-16s for $8 billion to Taiwan, one of the largest arms deals ever reached with the independent island,

Other systems include the Reaper drones, the HIMARS truck-launched rocket system, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

In Beijing today, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang defended Friday’s flights, calling them “a reasonable, necessary action aimed at the current situation in the Taiwan Strait and protecting national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

A similar flight took place last month when Chinese fighters briefly crossed the midline of the Taiwan Strait during a visit to Taiwan by Health Secretary Alex Azar.