US missile deployment to Philippines ‘incredibly important’ for combat readiness, US general says

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The U.S. Army’s recent deployment of a midrange missile system to the northern Philippines was “incredibly important” and allowed American and Filipino forces to jointly train for the potential usage of such heavy weaponry in Asian archipelago conditions, a U.S. general said Monday.

The Biden administration has moved to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flashpoints. The Philippines has also worked on shoring up its territorial defenses after its disputes with China started to escalate last year in the increasingly volatile South China Sea.

China has vehemently opposed the increased deployment of American combat forces to Asia. But it has been particularly alarmed by the U.S. Army’s deployment in April of the Typhon missile system, a land-based weapon that can fire the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, to the northern Philippines as part of joint combat exercises in April with Philippine troops.

“What it does collectively, it provides us the opportunity to understand how to employ that capability — the environmental challenges here are very unique to any other place in the region,” U.S. Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, Commanding General of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, said when asked how the missile system has helped participants in joint combat training in the Philippines.

“Last year, we also deployed long-range fires capabilities with HIMARS and we were able to move those around with fixed-wing aircraft around the archipelago environment,” Evans told The Associated Press in an interview in Manila, referring to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket