Guam missile defense system under pressure: $8 billion U.S. plan struggles with delays, leadership gaps, and China threat
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Why is the Guam missile Defense system facing delays despite billions in funding?
How is the army struggling to maintain current Defenses on Guam?
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What are the logistics and housing gaps delaying deployment?
Who is supposed to run the Guam missile Defense system?
Is Guam ready for a potential missile conflict with China?
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The $8 billion US missile defense plan for Guam—aimed at protecting the island from potential Chinese missile attacks—is facing serious challenges, according to a recent report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). Despite being one of the Pentagon's top defense priorities, the report reveals troubling gaps in planning, infrastructure, and long-term sustainability.The Pentagon's Guam Defense System (GDS) is supposed to offer a 360-degree missile shield around the island. It's a response to China's expanding missile force, especially weapons like the DF-26 "Guam Express"—a missile that can strike Guam from over 2,500 miles away. However, the GAO report, released last week, reveals the Department of Defense (DoD) still lacks a clear strategy for who will operate and sustain the system once installed.There's no finalized timeline or leadership plan between the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the military services. The system is supposed to be managed across 16 sites on Guam, with installation running from 2027 to 2032, but many critical operational questions remain unanswered.The US Army has had trouble even with its current responsibilities on the island. For more than 10 years, Guam has hosted a THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery, but basic support and maintenance are lacking. Army vehicles are being repaired under tarps, and there is still no permanent facility for the THAAD system. When a typhoon hit Guam in 2023, Army units had to rely on the Marine Corps for hangar space.GAO inspectors found that soldiers stationed there were drinking bottled water due to a lack of clean water access. These issues have created what the report described as 'morale challenges' for Army personnel and civilians.Beyond military operations, the Pentagon hasn't figured out how many service members will be needed, where they'll live, or how schools, medical services, and grocery stores will support them. This makes it nearly impossible to plan for training, housing, or deployment schedules.While some branches have tried to estimate their needs, the lack of an overarching plan has left critical infrastructure and personnel decisions in limbo. The Army is currently waiting for clarity before it can move forward with essential logistics.A major issue is the unclear chain of command. The GAO report says the Pentagon hasn't defined which military branch or agency will lead the Guam Defense System. Some responsibilities are shared between services, while others might fall to the Missile Defense Agency.This confusion could lead to duplication, delays, or gaps in operations when the system goes live. Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, who oversees the GDS project, told the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee earlier this month that the project will cost around $8 billion.China's People's Liberation Army Rocket Force has thousands of missiles, many aimed at deterring or disabling US bases in the Indo-Pacific region. Guam—home to key US airfields and submarines—would likely be one of the first targets in a conflict. Experts warn that the US could face an unprecedented missile threat if war were to break out with China.While the Guam Defense System is meant to address this risk, the lack of a clear operating plan, insufficient infrastructure, and poor conditions for current troops suggest that Guam is far from ready.The US military's efforts to build a strong missile defense for Guam are urgent, especially as threats from China grow. But without answers on who's in charge, how many troops are needed, and where they'll live and work, the system is far from battle-ready. If the Pentagon doesn't address these gaps soon, Guam may remain a vulnerable target—despite the billions already being spent.The system lacks leadership, planning, and support despite $8 billion funding.Guam hosts key US bases and is within range of China's DF-26 missiles.
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First Post
23 minutes ago
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Trump courts Asim Munir as Pakistan Army chief's political challenges mount at home
While US President Donald Trump touts the Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir, here's a look at the challenges back home that might make Islamabad less attractive for Americans read more Earlier this month, it was revealed that Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir will be visiting the United States once again. Munir will be attending a farewell event for US Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla in Tampa, Florida. But what garnered attention was the fact that this would be Munir's second visit to the US in just two months, following the four-day military clash between India and Pakistan. During a last visit, the world saw a rare instance of Trump sitting with the Army chief of a country in the Oval Office, treating him like a head of state. The rise of the newly appointed Pakistani Field Marshal in the span of a few years has many people comparing him to the country's erstwhile dictatorial Army chiefs, General Zia Ul Haq, Ayub Khan and Pervez Musharraf, all of whom eventually toppled the then-governments and took the reins of Pakistan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Amid all the speculations, America is treating Munir as what some call a 'de facto' leader of Pakistan. However, the Pakistani general is facing his share of challenges within the country, some of which are as follows. Political leaders are getting sidelined The speculations started to become rife soon after Munir received promotion in May to the ceremonial rank of Field Marshal — a distinction rarely granted in Pakistan. It is pertinent to note that there is only one other individual in Pakistani history who has previously held the title, General Ayub Khan. Khan eventually seized the government and became the President of Pakistan following a brutal 1958 coup. Hence, when Munir was appointed to the post, questions began to arise whether the country's President Asif Ali Zardari's seat is at risk. However, multiple Pakistani high-ranking officials have already dismissed the idea. While speaking to The Economist, ISPR Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry called the claims 'completely baseless', saying, 'Talks about Field Marshal Asim Munir becoming the president of Pakistan are completely baseless.' Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi echoed the sentiment, labelling the rumour mill as a 'malicious campaign.' 'President Zardari enjoys a strong and respectful relationship with the leadership of the armed forces', and stated that 'Munir's sole focus is Pakistan's strength and stability, and nothing else," he said. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also addressed the reports, saying, 'Field Marshal Asim Munir has never expressed any desire to become the president, nor is there any such plan in the offing.' However, Sharif himself is not able to enjoy the same stature in the United States and China that Munir has received. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Hence, Munir's rise to prominence is bound to increase animosities between the Pakistani leadership and the country's army. And if history is a witness, the cracks between the two never end well in Pakistan. The Imran Khan question On August 5, thousands of supporters of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan rallied across the country to demand his release on the second anniversary of his imprisonment. The jail sentencing of the supremo of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf has been garnering international attention for a while. In the February 8 elections last year, Khan's party managed to gain significant seats in the parliament without him, despite the party facing a ban forcing the leaders to contest independently. However, they had to sit on the opposition due to all sorts of problematic efforts undertaken by the current Pakistani ruling regime. Last month, an independent news outlet, Drop Site News, released an explosive report which revealed that during his White House meeting in June, Munir was told by Trump that 'he needed to resolve the situation with Imran Khan.' Not only this, the sons of the Pakistani cricketing legend have been consistently lobbying with both British and American politicians to ensure the release of their father. Over the years, Imran Khan has gained significant popularity among Pakistani-Americans. Two sources familiar with the matter told Drop Site News that Trump told Munir of his commitment to settling the political standoff involving Imran Khan. 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The economic question Since 2023, Pakistan have been reeling through a historic financial crisis, which ultimately forced the country to seek aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, things are getting tough for Pakistan even after the country received aid from the global financial institution. Earlier this month, Pakistani news outlet The Express Tribune reported that the country has failed to meet three out of the five critical targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the second review of its $7 billion bailout programme. The missed benchmark reflected the ongoing fiscal mismanagement in Pakistan, even as Islamabad touts progress on budget surplus goals. Citing the Ministry of Finance's fiscal operations summary, the report mentioned that Pakistan's provinces failed to meet the promised savings target of PKR 1.2 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in June. 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Hans India
23 minutes ago
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Army Chief Ridicules Pakistan's False Victory Claims After Operation Sindoor Checkmate
Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi has sharply criticized Pakistan's propaganda machinery for falsely claiming victory in Operation Sindoor, while describing the complex military engagement as a strategic chess game that resulted in India delivering a crushing checkmate. During his address at IIT Madras, the senior military officer exposed Pakistan's narrative manipulation while detailing the intricate nature of the grey zone warfare operation. The Army chief drew parallels between the anti-terrorism campaign and a high-stakes chess match, highlighting how both nations operated under extreme uncertainty throughout the conflict. He emphasized that the unpredictable nature of moves from both sides characterized this as a textbook grey zone operation, which operates in the space between peace and full-scale conventional war. Despite accepting significant operational risks, including potential casualties among Indian personnel, General Dwivedi confirmed that India's strategic planning proved superior and achieved complete success. Pakistan's disinformation campaign came under particularly harsh scrutiny from the Army chief, who specifically criticized Islamabad's decision to elevate General Asim Munir to field marshal rank as a desperate attempt to manufacture an appearance of victory. General Dwivedi mockingly observed how Pakistani citizens would naturally assume their military achieved success based solely on their Army chief's promotion, demonstrating the effectiveness of strategic narrative control in shaping public opinion about military conflicts. The retaliatory operation commenced on May 7 following the devastating Pahalgam terrorist incident, where Pakistan-sponsored militants brutally murdered 26 innocent civilians in Jammu and Kashmir. General Dwivedi expressed deep appreciation for the government's unwavering political resolve and crystal-clear strategic direction, especially praising the decision to grant complete operational autonomy to military leadership. He disclosed that during crucial April 23 meetings involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the political leadership firmly declared that tolerance for cross-border terrorism had reached its limit, authorizing the military to determine and execute appropriate response measures. The Army chief particularly emphasized the unprecedented nature of political support and confidence demonstrated by the current government. He detailed how all three service chiefs unanimously agreed on the necessity for decisive military action, while the political leadership's absolute trust in military expertise facilitated seamless mission execution without bureaucratic interference. Discussing the operation's nomenclature, General Dwivedi explained how the name "Operation Sindoor" struck a powerful chord across the nation, generating unprecedented public unity and support. He noted that the overwhelming national enthusiasm for the mission led to widespread public questioning about why the operation was terminated, reflecting the population's strong appetite for decisive action against cross-border terrorism. The precisely executed military campaign targeted terrorist training facilities and operational bases across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir through coordinated air and missile strikes against nine carefully selected objectives. Indian military forces, operating under complete governmental authority, maintained that their strikes remained focused, proportionate, and deliberately non-escalatory in nature. Pakistan's attempted retaliation through drone and missile attacks was comprehensively defeated by India's advanced air defense networks. Defense experts universally regard Operation Sindoor as an unqualified strategic triumph for India across multiple dimensions, including tactical military success and significant psychological impact. The mission effectively showcased India's advanced capabilities in executing precision-guided, multi-domain military operations while systematically destroying terrorist infrastructure and reestablishing credible deterrence against state-sponsored cross-border terrorism. General Dwivedi's public statements highlight the critical role of information warfare in contemporary military conflicts, where controlling narratives can be as important as battlefield victories. His pointed criticism of Pakistan's propaganda apparatus illustrates how competing nations systematically manipulate the same events to serve their respective domestic and international strategic objectives, often sacrificing factual accuracy for political convenience.
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23 minutes ago
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‘Not just military's job': Army Chief urges citizens, scientists to join nation's defence
Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi on Saturday said India's future security would rest on a 'whole-of-nation' approach, where soldiers, scientists, industry, academia, and citizens work in unison. Speaking at IIT Madras for the inauguration of the Indian Army Research Cell, he described how technology, civil preparedness, and public participation were as vital as military action. He also spoke about Operation Sindoor — the precision strikes launched in May inside Pakistan and PoK in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. Dwivedi's address drew heavily on his service's internal post-action assessments, which have focused on both technology integration and narrative management. 'Victory is in the mind,' he said. He pointed to Pakistan's success in convincing its domestic population that it had prevailed — aided, he suggested, by symbolic acts such as the promotion of its army chief to field marshal. India's answer was a deliberate, coordinated information campaign. 'If you ask a Pakistani whether you lost or won, he'd say, my chief has become field marshal, we must have won only,' Dwivedi said, adding, 'The first messaging we did was, 'Justice done.' That hit the maximum, I am told, in the world today in terms of the number of hits.' The Army paired that message with visible briefings, including press conferences by two women officers — one from the Army, another from the Air Force. Even the operation's logo, now widely circulated online, was designed in-house by a Lieutenant Colonel and a non-commissioned officer. Dwivedi framed modern defence as a shared responsibility, and highlighted initiatives from community bunkers along the border to advanced drones built with Indian institutes. Drawing attention to all modern war fronts, he noted how some nations have insulated their civilian life from the visible effects of war. Citing Moscow during the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict, he said that despite the scale of fighting, 'you don't realise that the war is on' when you are in the Russian capital. Elaborating on the importance of shielding the population from panic and disruption, even in times of heightened military operations — Dwivedi said Operation Sindoor was fought like a game of chess, not in the open-field conventions of 20th-century warfare, but in the 'grey zone,' where operations are calibrated to fall just short of full-scale war while still inflicting strategic damage. 'We did not know what is the next move the enemy is going to take and what are we going to do. This is something we called the grey zone… Somewhere, we were giving him a checkmate and somewhere we were kind of going in for the kill at the risk of even losing our own — but that's what life is all about,' he said. By April 25, Northern Command had planned and executed strikes on seven of nine identified targets — hitting what Dwivedi called 'the heartland' for the first time, destroying terror training infrastructure and killing large numbers of militants. Two additional targets, located deeper in Pakistan, were struck with Indian Air Force assets because of the extended ranges required. Early on May 7, aerial attacks eliminated over 100 fighters at camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. 'This was the first time we hit the heartland and of course our target was the nursery and the masters.' The operation, he said, was anchored in three factors: a rare clarity of political will, integrated tri-service planning, and the rapid fusion of intelligence with technology. 'All three chiefs were very clear that something had to be done,' Dwivedi said. 'A free hand was given — you decide what is to be done. That kind of confidence, political direction, and political clarity we saw for the first time.' The Army Chief framed Operation Sindoor not merely as retaliation but as a demonstration of India's evolving capability to operate in multi-domain conflict — land, air, cyber, and space — with tight integration between agencies and services. For the first time, he said, a single operational name was used by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, replacing the earlier practice of separate codenames. He said when he was briefed about the operation's name, he thought it was Operation Sindu — the Indus River. 'I said excellent sir, Indus Water Treaty has just been frozen by you. Then I am told, it is not Sindu but Operation Sindoor. Just see this one name has connected the whole nation together,' he said, adding that every time a woman applies Sindoor, 'she will always remember the soldier.' Narrative shaping, he said, is no longer secondary to battlefield success; it is part of the operation's architecture from the outset. 'It is about influencing the domestic population, the adversary's population, and the neutral population,' he said, describing a 'narrative management system' that tracked social sentiment, countered disinformation, and used trusted voices to reinforce the official account. Much of the speech was devoted to the technological backbone of Operation Sindoor. India's forces, Dwivedi said, are moving from 'muddy trenches to the internet of military things,' where data, sensors, and autonomous systems shape battlefield decisions in real time. On the intelligence side, the Army sought to unify its picture with the Navy and Air Force, layering surveillance data into a common operational view. The operation employed a mix of manned platforms, commercial satellite imagery, and 'pseudo-satellites' — high-altitude platforms capable of loitering over target areas — to track activity before and during the strikes. Tethered drones were used to overcome jamming, maintaining persistent eyes over critical zones. Social media and open-source data also played a role. Dwivedi alluded to 'good Samaritans' in India's global diaspora who helped gather relevant imagery and signals. Light-mapping analysis, which tracks night-time illumination patterns, was used to detect changes in activity. The campaign also tested India's capacity for 'federated' versus centralised data flows — balancing the resilience of distributed systems with the efficiency of unified command networks. A secure communications platform, developed with IIT Madras and known as Sambhav, allowed real-time coordination but also revealed the dangers of overloading channels during crises. In the air and on the ground, he said, the operation underscored the accelerating drone-counter-drone cycle. Indian units employed modified commercial drones, some adapted in partnership with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), for both reconnaissance and strike missions. Counter-drone systems, including soft-kill jammers and hard-kill interceptors, were integrated into the defensive plan. 'Drone and counter-drone is a ratcheting effect,' Dwivedi said. 'Both have to keep overcoming each other's strength.' Precision-guided munitions, converted from 'dumb' bombs, were a major factor in the operation's cost-effectiveness. Extended-range artillery and rocket systems were employed with circular error probabilities as low as two meters, according to the Army Chief. The doctrine, he argued, is shifting from attrition to precision: 'When the precision has increased, the cost does not make a difference — the impact does.' Talking about the civilian dimension of the border conflict, he said that India's population density near the Line of Control is lower than on the Pakistani side — a fact he suggested acts as a deterrent against large-scale attacks on civilian areas. Still, he said, the Army invests in civil defence exercises, construction of community bunkers, and coordination with the National Cadet Corps and local authorities to ensure awareness and readiness. The general's broader message was that future wars will require the 'whole-of-nation' approach — not just military forces, but academia, industry, government research agencies, and even citizen volunteers. He cited the Army's creation of a Technology Committee with 16 clusters, partnerships with IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, and an internship programme to draw engineers into military projects. Dwivedi urged faculty and students of IIT-Madras to contribute to priority areas including advanced composites, microelectronics, secure communications, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and synthetic biology.
