In an interview with Nikkei Asia published on December 3, Rob Phillips, spokesman for the Army unit of the U.S. Indo- Pacific Command, said that options being considered include several land-based versions of the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk cruise missile. The range of the missiles being considered is between 500 and 2,700 km.
The US and Philippine militaries conducted joint exercises in March.
This would be the first time the U.S. has deployed such missiles since the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty expired in 2019. The treaty, signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987, prohibited the two countries from developing and possessing ground-launched missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
Mr. Phillips did not provide details about where and when the U.S. plans to deploy the missiles.
According to Ankit Panda, a senior research fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (a research and policy advisory organization based in Washington, D.C.), the U.S. Army will deploy medium-range missile units primarily to the U.S. territory of Guam in the Western Pacific . The purpose of this is to provide rapid support to Washington's allies in Asia in case of an emergency.
Currently, Japan and the Philippines are reluctant to accept new US forces for fear of becoming direct targets in a crisis, according to Nikkei Asia . White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in January that the US had no plans to deploy new ground-based missiles in Japan.
Source link
Comment (0)