Davidson: Aegis Ashore on Guam Would ‘Free Up’ 3 Navy Destroyers - USNI News

Building an Aegis Ashore facility on Guam would relieve three guided-missile destroyers from missile defense work and make them available for Navy tasking, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Thursday.

Speaking at a virtual event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, Adm. Phil Davidson made the case for building a homeland missile defense system on Guam, which he has said is his top priority, to protect the U.S. territory from Chinese missiles.

“The Guam defense system brings the same ability to protect Guam and the system itself as the three DDGs it would otherwise take to carry out the mission,” Davidson said. “We need to free up those guided-missile destroyers, who have multi-mission capability to detect threats and finish threats under the sea, on the sea and above the sea, so that they can move with a mobile and maneuverable naval forces that they were designed to protect and provide their ballistic missile defense.”

The Aegis Ashore system pairs the same radar found on the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers along with a vertical launch system in a ground-based station.