US Navy Adm. John Aquilino warned that China's military buildup is on a scale not seen since WWII, putting it on track to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Aquilino urged the US to accelerate military development to counter the threat, emphasizing the need to deploy defense systems in Guam by 2027. While the threat of direct conflict between the US and China is not immediate, Aquilino stressed the need to reduce the risk of war as China rapidly expands its military capabilities across various domains.
Admiral John Aquilino, the U.S. commander in the Indo-Pacific, expressed interest in expanding the experimentation and deployment of directed-energy weapons, such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves, to gain asymmetric advantages against threats. The Pentagon has been investing billions of dollars in the development of these weapons, with the Navy already utilizing systems like HELIOS and ODIN to counter drones and small boats. Aquilino emphasized the need for accelerated delivery of these capabilities and expressed readiness to experiment with them, given the vast test range available in the Indo-Pacific region.
Guam, a vital military outpost for the United States in the Pacific, is vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes and is only thinly defended. The Pentagon has requested $1.5bn to start beefing up the island’s air defences in the 2024 fiscal year, much of it for the Missile Defence Agency (MDA), which focuses mainly on missile threats against the American homeland, and the rest to the army. Guam's people may worry that ever more military hardware on Guam will endanger them or scare away tourists.
