By Gerry Doyle
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A proposed multibillion-dollar missile defence system for Guam has been diminished to 16 websites on the island from the unique 22, the U.S. Missile Protection Company mentioned in a draft environmental affect assertion on Friday.
The venture is designed to create “360 degree” safety for the U.S. Pacific territory from missile and air assaults of every kind, the company mentioned. Plans embody integrating Raytheon (NYSE:)’s SM-6, SM-3 Block IIA, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:)’s THAAD, and the Patriot PAC-3, which makes use of parts from each corporations, over about 10 years.
The environmental affect research, which started final yr and included a public remark interval this yr, proposes “deploying and operating and maintaining a combination of integrated components for air and missile defense positioned on 16 sites” on the island. The report doesn’t say why the variety of websites was diminished.
All the remaining 16 websites are on U.S. navy property.
The venture is essential to the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies as a result of it supplies a logistical hub removed from the U.S. mainland – Guam is nearer to China than it’s to Hawaii.
China’s huge standard ballistic missile stock consists of the DF-26, with an estimated vary of about 4,000 km (2,500 miles), which may additionally carry anti-ship and nuclear warheads. Newer weapons in growth, such because the hypersonic glide car DF-27, are drawing elevated consideration from U.S. navy planners.
“It’s a forward operating base for long-range bombers, and a port for ships, so that navy ships can sally forth from there,” mentioned Peter Layton, a defence and aviation skilled on the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. “Certainly places in Japan and the Philippines are a lot closer (to China)… but a lot more exposed.”
There will likely be public conferences in Guam subsequent month to debate Friday’s report, the company assertion mentioned.
(This story has been refiled to say removed from the U.S. mainland, not from the U.S., in paragraph 5)
