US deploys Iron Dome to Protect Guam From Chinese Missile Attack

Related Video Above: U.S. and China: South China Sea Tensions

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The Pentagon has had a longstanding concern that many of its airplane and equipment basing locations in the Pacific theater could be vulnerable to Chinese land-fired ballistic missiles. 

Of course this pertains to bases in places like Japan and Australia but also, perhaps even more significantly, in the U.S. territory of Guam in the region which can base B-2 bombers, F-22s, F-35s and other crucial assets of great consequence in the region. Chinese ballistic missiles, many of which can fire from concealable mobile launchers and travel distances greater than 1,000 nautical miles, can quite possibly hold Guam and other U.S. allied locations at risk. 
The Pentagon has based a range of missile defense technologies in the Pacific, to include the ballistic-missile intercepting Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and other interceptor weapons intended to track and take out incoming enemy ballistic missiles.

Now, perhaps in response to the growing tensions in the region and the rapid arrival of new Chinese precision-guided weapons, the Pentagon has sent its first cutting edge IRON DOME missile defense technology to Guam.

IRON DOME 

Referring to the now-being-produced Iron Dome as “deployable” and “employable,” Army Maj. Gen. Brian Gibson, Director of the Air and Missile Defense Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, told The National Interest that the first Iron Dome battery became operational in September of this year and the second one is slated to arrive in December. Gibson was clear that the Iron Dome fills a critical defense gap for U.S. Air and Missile Defense efforts in the region.

“There may never be enough to protect everything, so we prioritize what is most important in terms of operational capability,” Gibson said.