During their Nov. 15 virtual summit, President Joe Biden told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that he “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” In response, Xi said, “Whoever plays with fire will get burnt.” The question of Taiwan’s future — peace or Chinese military action — is vitally important to Hawaii and the rest of the United States.
Biden’s commitment to ensure peace and stability depends upon credible deterrence of Chinese aggression. That deterrence is firmly centered on the island of Guam. The island is home to a key military port, a submarine base, bombers at Andersen Air Force Base, and, up to 5,000 Marines by 2025. These are the closest U.S.-based forces to China, and certain to be augmented by additional assets if tensions reach the boiling point. Former U.S. INDOPACOM commander Adm. Phil Davidson labeled Guam our “most critical operating location west of the international dateline.”
Ineffective protection of these Guam-based forces from China’s long-range weapon systems encourages aggression. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has invested heavily in missiles and weapons, including a hypersonic missile and nuclear arsenal expansion from 300 warheads to more than 1,000 by the year 2030.
If Guam cannot be defended from missile attack, Biden’s words in the summit will ring hollow, putting Taiwan, Hawaii and the U.S. at risk.
Work has been done on Guam’s missile defense, but this kind of work is never done. The U.S. first deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to Guam in 2013, and recently tested an Israeli-built system that was deemed unsuitable to the challenge. There are proposals to put an AEGIS Ashore land-based system in combination with THAAD — yet there is broad acknowledgement that this will not be sufficient to deter or defeat future threats.
While missile defense is technically complex and expensive, credible capability for Guam is imperative. The Department of Defense (DoD) must request, the president must support, and Congress must fund continued investment in modernization of THAAD, AEGIS Ashore or a more survivable system and continued pursuit of advanced missile defense to counter new Chinese weapons systems.
Current and future systems need an Open Mission Systems architecture enabling commanders to leverage existing assets across the military services and all domains. A collection of systems that cannot work together will not deter or defeat Chinese aggression; PRC capabilities are designed to defeat that outdated approach.
Failure to fulfill the missile defense requirement for Guam will make even more onerous the assertion in this year’s DoD report to Congress that China’s world view means that “the accrual of the PRC’s comprehensive national power, including military power, is necessary to set the conditions for Beijing to assert its preferences on a global scale.” If the defensive needs are not met, China could hold those forces and U.S. territory at risk to such a degree that the United States cannot respond to Chinese action against Taiwan — or assert other “preferences” that are the very antithesis of a free and open Indo-Asia-Pacific.
Guam is the focal point for missile defense enhancement — but these concepts, capabilities, and command and control relationships will pay dividends for bases in Japan, the Republic of Korea and for the defense of Hawaii and the U.S. mainland.
Naysayers who doubt the need for missile defense and about the potential for a Chinese attack on the United States and its forces should consider Chinese test and training targets, include mockups of U.S. installations, aircraft and naval vessels. Deterrence provided by missile defense for Guam will help ensure the targets are not real installations here in Hawaii.
Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf, a retired three-star general and Air Force fighter pilot, was deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Command from 2005-2008; he now is managing director of Phase Minus 1, a conflict resolution and security consulting company.
