HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series covering Monday’s legislative town hall on the proposed missile defense system for Guam.
Guam is no longer the proverbial “tip of the spear” for the United States, but has become the “first-strike community” in case of conflict with China. That is according to Robert Underwood, a former delegate to Congress and now chair of a regional think tank, the Pacific Center for Island Security.
Underwood’s statements, along with many others, were made before lawmakers Monday during a town hall meeting on the proposed 360-degree Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense System, which the military is preparing to develop on Guam in light of national security threats from China.
The Missile Defense Agency and its military partners now are developing an environmental impact statement on the missile defense system, a process that includes gathering public comments, which are due by Aug. 18, and hosting open-house scoping meetings in early August.
Monday’s town hall was a collaboration between three legislative committees to allow the sharing of information and voicing of opinions on the missile defense system before the end of the public comment period.
Local officials, activists and other stakeholders filled the public hearing room of the Guam Congress Building, some bearing signs reading “Genuine security now,” “Stop making us a target for war” and “We are not the tip of the spear.”
“It occurred to me that what is being contemplated here, and all the resiliency that’s being planned, is that they anticipate the first strike will be Guam,” Underwood said Monday.
“So the defense planners, they’re trying to say they’re focused on defending Guam. But in reality, they’re equally focused and maybe more focused on what they do after Guam is hit. So we’re kind of being offered as a first-strike community. So that’s why I focused on the thing about being the tip of the spear. It implies that we’re just the launching pad for different things, and the projection of power into the Indo-Pacific region. But’s it’s more than that. Now they’re anticipating us being a first-strike community,” the former delegate added.
Underwood also said, about two months ago, he met with another think tank that had run 24 scenarios of conflict with China over Taiwan.
“Each one of them, Guam is hit first,” Underwood recalled of the briefing with the think tank. “I said, ‘What do you recommend if you live on Guam?’ They said, ‘Don’t live near a base.’ I said that just doesn’t seem like a way to live, a way to accommodate our lives.”
‘Disturbing information deficit’
A major concern levied at the town hall was over insufficient information and a lack of transparency from the military. The office of Speaker Therese Terlaje stated in a release that the town hall had exposed a “disturbing information deficit” about the missile defense project.
The MDA has listed 20 potential missile defense sites on Guam, but, because the agency hasn’t disclosed what it wants to place at those sites, Underwood said, it isn’t clear just what’s being asked of the community.
“We do know that it’s going to burden the community with additional Guam lands being impacted,” Underwood said. “We also know that the system will be mobile and be moving around the island. We know that the threat to the community is being spread beyond the bases. There is no information about what components of the system are being proposed for each site. As such, it is impossible to know what to comment on.”
Speaker Therese Terlaje, left, chair of the Committee on Health, Land, Justice and Culture, holds a legislative town hall Monday, July 17, 2023, at the Public Hearing Room of the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña on the proposed 360-degree missile defense system on Guam.
About a half-dozen people hold signs Monday, July 17, 2023, at the Public Hearing Room of the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña during the legislative town hall on the proposed 360-degree missile defense system on Guam.
