HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The general in charge of missile defense for the U.S. Army is calling for a system like the military’s abandoned surveillance balloon project to be deployed on Guam.
Such a system, floating 10,000 to 15,000 feet above sea level, could be used to track threats approaching the island from distances that ground-based radar otherwise might not pick up, according to Lt. Gen. Dan Karbler, head of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
As the Department of Defense gears up to deploy a 360-degree missile defense system on the island, experts have said that early detection is a key to defending against cutting-edge threats such as hypersonic missiles being developed by China, The Guam Daily Post previously reported.
Karbler, speaking during a congressional roundtable discussion for the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said such a floating sensor could see past the curvature of the earth and be cheaper to operate than manned aircraft.
“When the threats are coming in, whether there are multiple cruise missiles, (unmanned aerial vehicles), you name it, I want to be able to max attrition as far forward as possible. I don’t even want them getting close to my defended area or my defended asset, … and an elevated sensor, allow(s) me to look out over that battle space farther away, allowing me to help enable long-range engagements,” Karbler said.
Something like the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, could be used on Guam, Karbler said. A stationary blimp, the JLENS project was scrapped after one of the blimps flew loose over the state of Maryland in 2015 and had to be shot down.
The incident, according to Karbler, had occurred under “extraordinary circumstances” and had been abandoned due to the embarrassment it caused, “there’s no shortage of people with extra time on their hands to make jokes about it.”
He said, however, the floating sensor platform retained its value, and was something that the military should continue to pursue.
A floating sensor platform would be ideal for deployment on Guam and other islands in the “second island chain,” in the event of a conflict with China, according to retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jon “Ty” Thomas, former commander of Pacific Air Forces, who also spoke during the roundtable.
“There aren’t that many air-to-air threats to the second island chain. So an airship or a tethered system probably is survivable in the second island chain far enough,” he said.
The best missile defense for the islands (would) prevent Chinese bombers from getting into position to fire at all, he said.
“OK, we stopped that. We just cut the threat to the second island chain by more than half,” Thomas said.
With increasing military focus on Guam in the event of a Pacific conflict, and growing tensions with China, the island is rapidly becoming the home for advanced surveillance technology fielded by the U.S. military. Toward these ends, the Navy recently sent a series of new Triton surveillance drones to the island, the Post reported.
A surveillance balloon by the U.S.-Mexico border is pictured on March 27, 2018, in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, near McAllen, Texas. The general in charge of missile defense for the U.S. Army is calling for a surveillance balloon project to be deployed on Guam.
