In a clear acknowledgement that Guam is now at risk, the U.S. Air Force announced on April 17 it would end its continuous rotation of bombers to the island base and withdraw them to the U.S. mainland.
The absence of a permanent bomber presence at Guam is a blow to Washington’s ability to deter China and North Korea, airpower experts say. The island in the Western Pacific is less than a five-hour flight from the South China Sea.
“It makes it look like the Chinese military build-up has worked,” said Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at Griffith University in Australia and a retired Australian air force Group Captain who has worked at the Pentagon. “They are now taken out of range.”
Since then, the United States has sent bombers to Guam for short-term deployments from their continental bases. U.S. airpower researchers suggest that the availability of better training facilities at mainland U.S. bases was also a factor in the decision to withdraw the bombers. But in further evidence of Guam’s vulnerability, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Philip Davidson, has asked Congress to fund a powerful missile defense system for the island by 2026.
These missions, military analysts say, are designed to send a crystal-clear signal: The United States can threaten China’s fleet and Chinese land targets at any time, from distant bases, without having to move America’s aircraft carriers and other expensive surface warships within range of Beijing’s massive arsenal of missiles.
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The other signal is that our expensive Navy surface ships are only effective against poorly armed countries, and for cleanup operations after the war is over.
The question is: Have Carriers become the Battleships of 1938?
Battleships in 1938 had very limited utility in WWII, instead of being the center of an effective force.
We need to do a lot more about China than we’re doing.