- The head of the Indo-Pacific Command pressured lawmakers to increase Guam’s defenses against China’s threats.
- He said Aegis Ashore would better protect strategic missile territory.
- “Guam is a target today,” he said, noting that Guam will face greater threats in the future.
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The top US commander in the Indo-Pacific lobbied lawmakers on Tuesday to support the provision of additional air defense and missile capabilities to Guam, given China’s growing ability to threaten the important territory.
“Guam is a target today,” United States Navy Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “He needs to be defended and prepared for the threats that will come in the future.”
“Guam is not just a place that we believe we can fight for, as we have been doing for many decades,” he said, telling the Senate panel that “we are going to have to fight for it”.
The admiral, who prioritized the defense of Guam, said that this strategic United States territory would benefit from Aegis Ashore. He argued that the High Altitude Area Terminal Defense system in place to defend Guam is unable “to meet China’s current threat trajectory”.
Davidson drew attention to a Chinese propaganda video showing an H-6 bomber attack at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as evidence of China’s strategic thinking. The video was ridiculed for shamelessly ripping footage from Hollywood films like ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’.
The Pentagon’s latest report on China’s military might noted that Chinese H-6K bomber flights in the western Pacific Ocean demonstrate China’s ability to reach Guam with planes launched [land-attack cruise missiles]”while the DF-26 medium-range missile dubbed the” Guam Express “is” capable of conducting conventional or precision nuclear attacks against ground targets, which could include American bases in Guam “.
Davidson said Guam would be better prepared to defend himself against these threats with Aegis Ashore, an anti-missile defense system based on the system the United States Navy installed on several of its destroyers and guided missile cruisers.
Davidson said on Tuesday that the United States needs to “demonstrate that any ambition China may have and any threat it may pose against Guam will come at a cost”.
“That would really be by collecting not only that defensive capability, which I consider so critical because it prevents a cheap shot”, but also other capabilities “so that China knows that the cost of what they seek to do is too high and to give them doubts. about your success, “he said.
The admiral told lawmakers that placing Aegis Ashore in Guam would show China that “it” cannot knock out Guam with an easy shot and keep us out of the struggle to present a fait accompli “in a regional crisis, such as a conflict over Taiwan.
Davidson’s Aegis Ashore proposal is part of the broader Pacific Defense Initiative that is expected to require about $ 4.6 billion in defense funds in fiscal year 2022 and $ 27 billion in the next five years, as the Pentagon prioritizes competition with China.
The Defense Department leadership has repeatedly identified China as the “threat of pace”, and the Biden government has pointed to China as the most challenging competitor in the United States.
In this competition, Guam is a vital territorial property. Not only is it home to more than 170,000 American and military citizens, but it also offers access to a deep-water port, fuel and ammunition storage, and an airfield for US power projection. There is based a squadron of submarines and a ship that performs maintenance on them.
“America’s day starts in Guam, and it is not just a place to fight for, but also a place to fight for, given the threats we face in the short term and for the foreseeable future,” Davidson told lawmakers on Tuesday.