U.S. ‘too slow’ to harden Pacific bases, expert warns
U.S. under secretary for policy Elbridge Colby said Washington considers Asia its top priority and is strengthening what he described as a “deterrence by denial” posture along the First Island Chain, the arc of islands that runs through Japan’s Okinawa islands, Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo. Delivering a speech Monday at the Stratbase Institute in Manila, Colby said the United States is “decidedly not disengaging from Asia.”
“We are not leaving,” Colby said. “We are digging in to ensure a favorable balance of power where it matters.”
He said the strategy is intended to convince a potential adversary that it cannot successfully achieve its military objectives in the region. Washington plans to strengthen distributed theater logistics and pre-positioned equipment in the western Pacific while building combat-capable forces with allies and partners, he said. In the Philippines, Colby said the United States will jointly invest in resilient infrastructure, operate sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and rotationally deploy four Fast Response Cutters to patrol the country’s exclusive economic zone with the Philippine Coast Guard.
The Manila visit is Colby’s first official trip to Southeast Asia. He is scheduled to visit Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.
Colby said increased U.S. engagement in Asia does not mean Washington will continue allowing allies to rely heavily on American military power. “Countries can no longer take America for granted,” he said, calling on allies to increase defense spending and assume greater responsibility for their own security. The defense architecture along the First Island Chain, he said, “cannot rest on America’s shoulders alone.”
“We are looking for partners, not protectorates,” Colby said.
He also warned against security arrangements among middle powers designed to exclude the United States, urging countries to abandon what he called the “delusion” of fashionable but superficial concepts such as middle-power alliances intended to leave Washington out. “Signed pieces of paper or newly created working groups do not deter coercion,” he said, arguing that deterrence depends on deployed military power and demonstrated political willingness to use it. He said allies’ expanding defense industries and military capabilities should complement and integrate with U.S. forces in the region.
Seth G. Jones, director of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said U.S. military installations across the Pacific remain poorly protected against missiles and drones. He said U.S. bases and other infrastructure “from Japan and the Philippines to Guam and South Korea” are highly vulnerable to Chinese and North Korean missile and drone attacks.
Jones pointed to lessons from recent Iranian attacks on U.S.-used installations in the Middle East, saying Iran carried out more than 2,000 air, missile and drone attacks after the start of Operation Epic Fury, damaging at least 20 facilities used by U.S. forces across eight countries. He estimated that at least 42 U.S. military aircraft were damaged or destroyed and that losses to equipment and facilities reached as much as $13 billion. Three U.S. service members were killed in a recent Iranian attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, he said, and he cited serious damage to the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar as well as attacks affecting U.S. personnel and aircraft in Saudi Arabia. U.S. naval headquarters, radar installations and satellite communications facilities in Bahrain were also targeted, he said.
Jones said Ukraine and Russia have substantially expanded air defenses, electronic warfare systems and sensors since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and that both have used anti-drone netting, concrete barriers and underground facilities to protect military assets. The United States has been “too slow” to apply those lessons to the defense of its overseas bases, he said, warning that the challenge in the Pacific is significantly greater because China fields larger and more advanced forces than Iran, including drones and cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
Jones proposed a three-layer active defense system for U.S. bases and critical infrastructure. At the upper tier, he called for expanding supplies of Patriot air defense systems, which he said are already in short supply. For the middle tier, he recommended strengthening the Indirect Fire Protection Capability to intercept threats including cruise missiles. At short range, he cited Coyote and Merops systems for intercepting one-way attack drones, and he said directed-energy weapons such as high-power lasers and microwave systems, along with radio-frequency jamming and electronic warfare capabilities, could also prove effective against drones.
Active defenses alone would not be enough, Jones said. He urged the military to expand underground facilities, anti-drone nets, fencing and dense multilayer concrete barriers, and recommended using decoys resembling Patriot batteries or combat aircraft to draw enemy fire away from real systems. Naval and air bases should be dispersed to prevent a single strike from causing large-scale losses, he said.
Jones called on Congress to increase funding for maintaining, repairing and modernizing military facilities and urged the Pentagon to spend the money quickly. “In a world awash in drones and missiles, America’s lack of preparedness has already come at a tremendous cost,” he said, warning that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are watching.