U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) says the U.S. lacks the arsenal required to deter the Chinese from obtaining greater power in the Pacific region, writing in a Fox News editorial with U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) that legislation is needed to empower the military to match China’s missile capabilities.
“China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific must be deterred," she wrote July 6 on Twitter. "The lack of U.S. missile capabilities in the region calls our ability into question. I’m working with @RepGallagher to address the missile gap through building ‘rings of fire' to deter China.”
The two Republican legislators wrote in the July 5 editorial that “the Pentagon reports that China fields over 1,250 ground-launched theater-range ballistic and cruise missiles that can hit U.S. targets across the Indo-Pacific. In fact, in 2021, China tested more ballistic missiles than the rest of the world combined.”
Ernst and Gallagher, who is chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote that the U.S. does not possess the ability to compete with the Chinese theater-range missile arsenal.
“This shocking missile gap calls into question America’s ability to deter war – or win if deterrence fails," they wrote.
According to Shore News, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) believes China has continued to increase its nuclear arsenal, while the Biden Administration has not “even raised the bar” to confront it. Calling for action to increase missile defense, Turner said, “We have the technology. We worked with Israel to deploy it. Israel has proven it is cost effective, it works, it is de-escalatory. It works. We need to pursue this.”
Gallagher and Ernst wrote that it will "take an act of Congress to force the Pentagon to level the playing field in long-range strike,” which the two said they plan to do through legislation. “Through our Rings of Fire Act of 2023, we will require the Pentagon to develop a strategy for offsetting China’s missile advantages. The strategy would assess gaps in our theater-range strike capabilities in the Indo-Pacific and the military requirements to close them.”
In a video attached to the article, a Chinese warship nearly collided with a U.S. destroyer in the South China Sea, which Gallagher said was evidence that China is “an increasingly aggressive, revisionist power bent on displacing us as the dominant power in the Pacific, and I believe globally.”
Gallagher said that “we need to wake up” and stop “projecting weakness," before China pushes its agenda further into the Pacific.
