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| Readying an Aegis System for testing |
By Robert Holzer & Scott Truver
The U.S. Navy’s Aegis Weapon System is the lynchpin for regional missile defense in Asia.
Geopolitical developments across the Western Pacific region are generating a rise in military modernization efforts among U.S. allies and partners and other countries. One of the military systems receiving increased focus and resources is missile defense—especially ship-based defenses against cruise and ballistic missiles. In that regard, the U.S. Navy’s Aegis Weapon System is emerging as a centerpiece of these efforts, and will play a significant role in enhancing regional missile defense cooperation, interoperability and integration against common adversaries––particularly North Korea but also China as well.
Regional Missile Threats
Many nations in the Pacific are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the pace of China’s military modernization as well as its regional expansionism. Likewise, the North Korean regime’s continued bellicosity combined with its testing and deployment of new, longer-range ballistic missiles is ratcheting up regional tensions.
According to the Pentagon’s 2014 report to Congress on China’s military, the PLA Navy has experienced at least a decade of modernization that has yielded an impressive force with modern ships, submarines and an aircraft carrier entering the fleet. In mid-2014, the PLAN boasts nearly 200 major combatants, and some experts project it will surpass the size of the U.S. Navy as early as 2020. In 2013, the PLAN laid down, launched or commissioned more than 50 ships and similar numbers are expected in 2014, including a new-generation guided missile destroyer armed with anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), land-attack cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles and anti-submarine missiles––the PLAN’s equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s Burke guided missile destroyers (DDGs) that first went to sea in 1991. New destroyers and guided-missile frigates provide a significant upgrade to the PLAN’s air defense capability, which will be critical as it expands operations into “distant seas” beyond the range of shore-based air defenses.
Read the full 3 page story at The Diplomat