The top U.S. commander in the Indo-Pacific pointed to a Chinese Air Force propaganda video Tuesday when making his case to senators why there is an urgent need to build a missile-defense system in Guam.
“Guam is a target today. It needs to be defended,” Adm. Phil Davidson said when asked to explain why he claims to need $1.65 billion over five years to fund an Aegis Ashore radar and a missile-defense system on the American territory.
“And it's been evidenced — by me, and displayed by the Chinese in a propaganda video of their own bomber forces attacking Andersen Air Force Base on Guam,” he said. “It prevents a cheap shot.”
Davidson declined to discuss in an unclassified setting how the island could be currently defended from Chinese ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles. China is also circumnavigating the island and just proved it can wage cyberwar on the United States with a recent attack of Microsoft Exchange email software.
The top U.S. commander in the region also called China “the greatest long-term strategic threat to security in the 21st century.”
TOP HOUSE ARMED SERVICES DEMOCRAT WARNS OF 'STUMBLING INTO A COLD WAR WITH CHINA'
Davidson’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing for the fiscal 2022 defense request and future years was tied to his recent $27.3 billion, five-year ask to fund a new program called the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
The request, in part, is designed to prevent China’s military investment from surging past U.S. capability, but senators still hesitated to give Davidson a blank check.
“We must guard against treating the Chinese People's Liberation Army and China as 10 feet tall,” committee Chairman and Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed said.
The PDI program started off with $6.8 billion in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and, beyond shoring up U.S. defenses in Guam, aims to fund regional exercises with partners and allies and enhance the information technology needed to prevent China from shutting down communication in the region should a conflict break out.
Notably, Davidson increased the amount requested for partners and allies in his fiscal 2022 budget request from $300 million to about $2.8 billion.
'Pacing challenge'
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set the Defense Department’s agenda even before his Senate confirmation, declaring China to be the DOD’s “pacing challenge” in his nomination hearing. In a message to the force last week, Austin also listed China as a top priority after defeating COVID-19, and he recently created a China Task Force to identify policy priorities.
On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Examiner that leveraging alliances is one way the secretary will do that.
“We'll continue to see this department and the secretary put a lot of effort into making sure that we're postured properly in the Indo-Pacific,” he said at a Pentagon briefing. “That we are properly respecting, utilizing, and empowering our alliances and partnerships in that part of the world, five of our seven treaty allowances are in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The urgent calls are nothing new.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper frequently harped on the threats posed by China and used visits to the region to bolster partner relationships and collaboration with allies.
Now, in his first visit overseas, Austin will do the same, with an as-yet-unannounced March 14-18 visit with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to treaty partners South Korea and Japan. For Austin, the trip will likely include a stop at Indo-Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii.
In a recent virtual gathering of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Indo-PaCom intelligence chief Rear Adm. Michael Studeman said Chinese law already guarantees that its military will be used to protect its economic interests.
“There's a new national security law that essentially allows the PLA military to deploy and use force if there are any threats to China's development goals,” Studeman said. “What you'll find is that they will end up sending out the PLA more and more often.”
The big boost to partner funding, Davidson explained, would help to ramp up training with alliance partners such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia, who are onboarding high-tech, American-made defense purchases.
“We've got to advance our exercise program,” Davidson explained, noting that 21st-century training will require practicing when logistics is contested.
Allies, he said, need to work together as a “coalition force, if we’re to come about.”
As the DOD continues its global force posture review until mid-year, Anderson said he was satisfied with the current American presence in the region.
The U.S. has approximately 375,000 military and civilian personnel in the theater, Indo-Pacom told the Washington Examiner, including at military bases at the command headquarters in Hawaii, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
Keeping pace with China's spending
Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker, sitting in for ranking member Jim Inhofe, pointed out that China plans to increase its military spending by 6.8% this year and the DOD’s budget will not keep pace.
“We're going to have to take money from somewhere else in the defense budget at this point,” he said. “We’re going to have to spend our money smarter.”
To be sure, the U.S. has already shown an appetite to reduce forces in the Middle East, flying occasional B-52 missions in place of a permanent carrier presence in the Persian Gulf. Austin’s duty as defense secretary is expected to wind down the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. has 2,500 troops each.
While President Biden froze former President Donald Trump's plans to draw down 12,000 troops from Germany, the Pentagon has said it will not announce until June what force movements it expects in Europe. Some shifting of resources and manpower is expected.
Democrats like House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith have demanded that lawmakers take a hard look at areas like costly nuclear modernization. Budget detractors, however, have said China and Russia have already modernized their nuclear arsenals.
Kirby told the Washington Examiner Tuesday that Austin is behind the PDI budget requests Davidson outlined at his Senate hearing.
“That development will be nested into the budget process,” he said. “To fund key investments that will maintain a credible deterrent in the Indo-Pacific and reassure our allies and partners, as well as reducing operational risk.”
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Davidson assured that the deterrence program is about offensive capability, too.
“Our deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific must demonstrate the capability, the capacity, and the will to convince Beijing unequivocally the costs of achieving their objectives by the use of military force are simply too high,” he said.
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