The Warzone Wire
The fate of the AN/TPY-6 radar is unclear amid larger questions about plans to dramatically expand Guam’s shield against Chinese missiles.
In January, the U.S. military moved to halt work on the new AN/TPY-6 radar, one of seven key elements of the huge new air and missile defense architecture taking shape on Guam, and its current status is now unclear. This underscores other important, but still unanswered questions about the plans to better protect the extremely strategic U.S. island territory in the Western Pacific, including the total personnel required and which services they will come from.
In a memo to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on Jan. 7, then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks directed the termination of all further development of AN/TPY-6, according to a report the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, published last week. Hicks, who left the post when President Donald Trump took office later that month, was succeeded first by Robert Salesses (in an acting capacity) and then by Stephen Feinberg.
