Issue Briefs
How To Counter The Chinese Missile Threat: More Missile Defense? (From 1945)
Daniel Goure
December 13th, 2021
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is rapidly building a world-class military that could dominate the Western Pacific. As part of its near-meteoric rise, the PLA is rapidly becoming a missile superpower, capable of threatening the U.S. homeland as well as U.S. forces and allies in the Indo-Pacific region. In order to deter China and ensure that the People’s Liberation Army cannot use its missile power to conduct a disarming first strike against U.S. forces and facilities in the Pacific region, the U.S. military is investing in forces and infrastructure designed to support a more robust forward-deployed posture. The key to the U.S. military’s ability to operate forward and maintain key facilities in the region is a robust missile defense capability. Above all, the U.S. and allies need to create a distributed radar sensor grid that will support long-range, agile, and highly lethal defenses. I have written more about this here.
The views and opinions expressed in this issue brief are those of the author.
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Daniel Gouré, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Goure has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. |