- The head of the Indo-Pacific commander urged lawmakers to advance Guam’s defense against China’s threats.
- He said Aegis Ashore would better protect the strategic area from missiles.
- “Guam is a target today,” he said, pointing out that Guam would face greater threats in the future.
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The top US commander in the Indo-Pacific has urged lawmakers on Tuesday to support the availability of additional air and missile defense capabilities for Guam, given China’s growing ability to threaten the important area.
“Guam is a target today,” U.S. Navy Commander Philip Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It needs to be defended, and it needs to be prepared for the threats that will come in the future.”
“Guam is not just a place from which we believe we can fight, as we have done for many decades,” he said, telling the Senate panel that “we will have to fight for it.”
The admiral, who made Guam’s defense a top priority, said this strategic US territory would benefit from Aegis Ashore. He argued that the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system set up to defend Guam was unable to “take the current route of threats out of China.”
Davidson drew attention to a Chinese propaganda video showing an H-6 bombing at the Andersen air force base on Guam as evidence of China’s strategic thinking. The video was ridiculed for shamelessly cutting footage from Hollywood movies such as ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’. ‘
The Pentagon’s most recent military military report from China noted that Chinese “H-6K bomber flights to the western Pacific demonstrate that China has the ability to reach Guam by air. [land-attack cruise missiles]’while the DF-26 medium-range missile nicknamed’ Guam Express ” is capable of carrying out precise conventions or nuclear attacks against ground targets, which may include US bases on Guam. ‘
Davidson said Guam would be better prepared to defend against these threats with Aegis Ashore, an air and missile defense system based on the system that led the U.S. Navy to a number of its wrecked and cruisers.
Davidson said on Tuesday that America “must demonstrate that any ambition China may have and any threat it may pose to Guam will come at the expense.”
“It would really be by gathering not only this defense capability, which I think is so critical because it’s a cheap shot, ‘but also other capabilities’ to let China know that the cost of what they want to do is too high. is. and gives them doubt in their success, ‘he said.
The admiral told lawmakers that the placement of Aegis ashore in Guam China would show that ‘it’ Guam could not strike with an easy shot and could not keep us in the fight to present an accomplished fact ‘in a regional crisis, such as a conflict over Taiwan.
Davidson’s Aegis Ashore proposal is part of the broader Pacific Defense Initiative, which is expected to require an estimated $ 4.6 billion in defense funds and $ 27 billion in the 2022 financial year, as the Pentagon makes competition with China a priority.
The Department of Defense’s leadership has repeatedly identified China as the ‘pace threat’, and the Biden government has singled out China as America’s most challenging rival.
In this competition, Guam is an important territorial possession. Not only is it home to more than 170,000 U.S. citizens and service members, but it also provides access to a deep-water port, fuel and ammunition depot, and an airport for U.S. power projection. There is a submarine squadron and a ship that maintains it.
“The American day begins in Guam, and it is not only a place we must fight for, but also one we must fight for – given the threats we face in the near term and for the foreseeable future,” Davidson told lawmakers Tuesday.