"The defense of Guam" is one of the priorities this year for the U.S. military's Indo-Pacific Command, its commander, Adm. Phil Davidson, said in testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in the nation's capital Wednesday, Guam time.
Davidson said China is a threat to Guam now – as shown by Chinese submarines "circumnavigating" Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in recent years.
He also pointed out Chinese military propaganda released about a year ago that showed Andersen Air Force Base on Guam as a potential target.
"Guam is a target today. It needs to be defended and it needs to be prepared for the threats that will come in the future because it is clear to me that Guam is not just a place that we believe that we could fight from – as we have for many decades. We're going to have to fight for it."
There are 170,000 people living on this U.S. territory, he said. Guam's defense, he said, "is homeland defense."
Davidson is trying to make a case for a comprehensive missile defense system, one that protects Guam more effectively from the air, land and sea. He's advocating for the Aegis Ashore system which has a price tag of $1.6 billion.
The admiral also is advocating for upgrades to the United States' early warning systems, including satellite images from space, and signals intercepted on land, at sea and in the air, that would give the U.S. military time to avert an attack.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system, which intercepts missiles from a mobile truck and is based in Andersen Air Force Base, is simply not enough, Davidson said.
The Pentagon sent the THAAD missile interceptor to Guam several years ago as North Korea made several threats to aim its missiles at Guam.
The hearing discussed China's expansion of its military capabilities at a rate that's eclipsing the U.S. military's.
Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, asked Davidson to confirm unclassified information that in 2025, China will have three aircraft carriers to the U.S. military's one aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific region. And in that same time span, China will have six amphibious assault ships in Guam's back yard while the U.S. will have two.
"Four short years from now, in 2025, shows at that point, China will have three aircraft carriers to one in the region for the United States. Is that correct?" Wicker asked.
"Yes, sir," Davidson responded.
"The important factor here is time. It takes almost three weeks to respond from the West Coast, 17 days from Alaska," said Davidson, in the event of a conflict in the Western Pacific.
Japan, as an important ally, does have amphibious ship capability, said Davidson.
China's military is getting a 6.8% budget increase this year while the U.S. defense budget, despite the growing needs in the Indo-Pacific, including Guam, is static, according to discussions at the hearing
"We are going to have to spend our money wiser," Wicker said.
"I worry that they are moving that target closer," said Davidson, referring to China's potential to try and annex Taiwan.
Davidson talked about the possibility that China's communist regime will make a move on Taiwan as soon as over the next six years.
"I'm a key advocate for a persistent, fixed, 360-degree air and missile defense that would be capable of meeting cruise missile threats, ballistic missile threats, certainly anything that could be cruise missile-launched from a bomber, from the land, from the sea and from the air in the region. The structure that's out there right right now, the THAAD radar, is not capable of meeting the current trajectory of threats from China," Davidson said.
Working with allies in the region will help, he said. Davidson mentioned the United States will have what's called the "Quad" – India, Japan, Australia and the United States – to count on. "That's a diamond of democracies," he said.