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By Ryan Chan
China News Reporter
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A visit by the Japanese army to a military base in the United States last week hinted at the possible future deployment of a new American missile system near China and Russia.
Photos shared by the U.S. Air Force's 62nd Airlift Wing showed it hosted a delegation of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. One of the pictures showed the U.S. Army's latest Mid-Range Capability missile system, also known as the Typhon.
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The Army stood up its second Typhon battery at the West Coast base in January. The introduction was part of an ongoing upgrade to the service's long-range precision fires, in response to challenges posed by Russian and Chinese ballistic missile units.
The modernization plan involves developing longer-range systems as well as modifying existing air- and sea-launched missiles for ground launch.
The Typhon fires two types of anti-surface and -air munitions already used by the U.S. Navy: the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Standard Missile 6, with respective ranges of 1,000 and 290 miles.
The Army plans to use the Typhon missile launcher to cover the 310-1,800-mile gap between its short-range Precision Strike Missile and its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, both of which are still under development.
All three ground-based missile systems will form the Strategic Fires Battalion of the Army's future Multi-Domain Task Force.
The 62nd Airlift Wing's post said the visit "underscores the vital role our teamwork plays in strengthening ties with our Pacific allies and reinforcing our commitment to collaboration and excellence."
In an emailed response to Newsweek, a spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force unit said the delegation led by Lt. Gen. Kazuo Sakai, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force chief of staff, was "to strengthen cooperation between U.S and Japan and see firsthand the capabilities of the U.S. Army and Air Force units stationed here."
Japan's embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
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The Japanese army's visit appeared to raise the prospect of the Typhon's deployment on the territory of one of the U.S.'s most vital security treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific region. Japan hosts nearly 55,000 American troops, according to the Pentagon's latest manpower statistics—more than any other location in the world outside U.S. territory.
During an April visit to South Korea, another long-time U.S. ally, Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, said Typhon launchers would be deployed to the region this year.
Flynn did not go into detail about a location or timeline, but the Army's medium-range capability made its debut outside the U.S. a few days later. That same month, a Typhon launcher was delivered to northern Luzon in the Philippines as part of an annual exercise with the U.S. ally, in a demonstration hailed as a "historic first."
The missile system's temporary deployment to the edge of the contested South China Sea was heavily criticized by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which accused the U.S. of strengthening "forward deployment at China's doorstep."
The island of Luzon, near the center of the so-called first island chain, put military targets in southern and eastern China, as well as those in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, within the sights of the Army's Tomahawk missiles.
The Chinese government said the move raised security concerns for Beijing and could increase strategic risk for all sides.
Neither Washington nor Tokyo have announced any plans to host Typhon launchers in Japan. If deployed to Okinawa, the Japanese island that hosts two-thirds of all U.S. forces in the country, the missiles could also reach targets in central China and in the Korean Peninsula.
Efforts to modernize the Army's long-range precision fires can be traced back to 2019, when the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a bilateral arms control agreement signed with Russia that banned ground-based launchers with ranges from 310-3,420 miles.
Typhon launchers in Japan would affect the military balance with Russia, said Dmitry Stefanovich, a research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow.
Russia has no ground-based long-range precision strike options in the Far East, Stefanovich told Newsweek. "The situation is even more dramatic given the Kuril Islands case and limited routes of passage from the bases of the Russian Pacific Fleet."
Moscow and Tokyo dispute ownership over the Russia-controlled archipelago in the Northern Pacific, which Japan calls the Northern Territories. The two sides have been unable to negotiate a formal peace treaty since the end of World War II.
Russia would likely counter a Typhon deployment in Japan by positioning similar weapons systems in the Far East, Stefanovich said.
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In Europe, the U.S. already plans to deploy the Army's long-range fires to Germany in 2026—Tomahawk missiles, the Standard Missile 6, and hypersonic weapons—according to a joint statement by both countries last month.
"This is a signal to the U.S. allies that they can and must develop and deploy similar capabilities, and both Germany and Japan have relevant projects in progress," said Stefanovich, who warned that a long-range missile arms race was heating up.
"Long-range missiles might lead to inadvertent escalation, especially if we speak about dual-capable and fast-flying weapons," he said, referring to a system designed for both nuclear and conventional missions.
Update, 8/13/24, 3 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a comment from the U.S. Air Force's 62nd Airlift Wing.
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