This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
The U.S. military downed a ballistic missile target for the first time from Guam in what Pentagon officials called a “critical milestone” in protecting the western Pacific from potential threats.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said the Aegis Guam System intercepted and shot down the target on Tuesday off the coast from Andersen Air Force Base in northern Guam during what it dubbed as “Designated Flight Experiment Mission-02.”
“Today’s flight test is a critical milestone in the defense of Guam and the region,” Rear Adm. Greg Huffman, commander of Joint Task Force-Micronesia, said in a press release.
The shootdown took place amid an imminent American military build-up on Guam, a heavily militarized U.S. territory, and a superpower rivalry in the western Pacific between Washington and Beijing. The statement from the MDA did not name China.
“It confirmed our ability to detect, track, and engage a target missile in flight, increasing our readiness to defend against evolving adversary threats. The event’s success is a testament to the incredible work of the team both within the DoD and the Government of Guam,” Huffman said.
Referred to as the “tip of the U.S. military spear” in the western Pacific Ocean because it is closer to China than Hawaii, one-third of Guam lands are owned by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, the MDA director, praised all involved in the exercise.
The test “provides a glimpse of how organizations within the Department of Defense have come together to defend our homeland Guam now, and in the future,” Collins said in the news release. “Collectively, we will use this to build upon and validate joint tracking architecture and integrated air and missile defense capabilities for Guam.”
An environmental assessment dated May 2024 said the test would have “no significant direct, indirect, or cumulative environmental impacts” of the island. Instead, debris “would fall to the surface of the ocean greater than 88 nautical miles from Guam and sink to the ocean floor.”
On Tuesday, MDA press officer Fred Hair rated it successful, adding that debris fell into the ocean away from Guam, as planned.
In the May assessment, the MDA announced plans to conduct up to two test flights per year over the next decade.
“A flight test represents a target missile flight, an interceptor missile flight, an intercept of a target missile or a test of sensors independent of missile flight. For a single flight test, multiple interceptors and targets may be utilized,” the assessment said. “A tracking exercise involves using sensors to scan and track a target with no interceptor.”
The MDA has said the Guam missile system has a cost of $1.2 billion, which it calls a priority in its $10.4 billion 2025 budget proposal.
“Think of it as a deterrent,” John Bier, program director of the Guam Defense System for the MDA, told BenarNews in July. “If you don’t have a defense and if something decides to threaten this island, (and reinforcements) can’t get here fast enough, that’s why we want to have it here on the island.”
At the time, a group representing Guam’s indigenous Chamoru people, who oppose the militarization of their traditional lands and waters, protested outside an “open house” by the MDA to present information about the plan.
“It’s really hard to pick a place to start – from disgust to horror – to talk about the many negative impacts of this plan,” spokesperson Moneaka Flores told BenarNews.
“The ocean is not an endless resource for us to exploit and contaminate, nor is our island. Our island is constantly being set up to endure the burdens of militarization, building us up to be a site for war once again,” Flores said.
The military plans to relocate 5,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa, Japan, by 2028 partly in response to long-range ballistic missiles developed by China and North Korea.
Guam, which is about 4,750 km (2,950 miles) from China and about 6,360 km (3,950 miles) from Hawaii, is home to over 150,000 people including 21,000 military members and their families.
