The Washington Times obtained a previously undisclosed congressional assessment by Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo calling for $122 billion in new military spending — the minimum he says is needed to deter China.
National security correspondent Bill Gertz breaks down what’s in it.
I did get a hold of something called the Independent Assessment of the Threat Environment. And basically it was a wish list under what’s known as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
So this was a report that’s unclassified but has never been made public until we got a copy and wrote about it. But it was pretty amazing in looking at the priorities and directions of where the Indo-Pacific Command — Now, the Pacific Command — they changed the name on us before we could change the name of our conference here.
But I just wanted to read one of the bottom lines from Paparo in what he called an independent assessment. He said: “The security environment in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more dangerous and defined by an increasing risk of confrontation and crisis. China’s aggressive military modernization, territorial expansion, and deepening relationships with Russia and North Korea present key challenges in an increasingly complex security environment.”
So what does he need? He talks about — not so much shipbuilding, because his requirements right now are extremely urgent — to try and maintain and build up forces in order to deter China. And basically he calls it the denial strategy. And he wants $122 billion, which he calls the minimum needed to establish deterrence against the threat from China.
Within that $122 billion, the biggest piece of it is about $66 billion for new missiles. And that’s offensive missiles — Tomahawks, cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles that are going to be coming online fairly quickly — and of course defensive missiles, the THAAD, advanced Patriot anti-missile systems, all of those are included in there. And another key feature of that is the SM-3 missile, which is amazing — SM-6 missiles. These are Navy missiles that both can be used in defensive and offensive modes.
And the interesting thing, relevant to our discussion here, is he wants $18 billion for what he calls counter command and control. That is electronic systems and other means that can be used to counter China’s command and control system. And the way he put it kind of delicately in his report was, he says these weapons and systems are needed to create dilemmas for the adversary. Basically, China.
Watch the video for the full conversation.
Read more: Indo-Pacific Command chief sounds alarm on China war threat in private report to Congress
Click here to receive the daily Threat Status newsletter delivered directly to your inbox.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.