Missiles are at the center of global conflicts today. Much of 2024 was spent debating the escalation risks of allowing Ukraine to fire its U.S.-made longer-range missiles at targets inside Russia. In the Middle East, Iran’s high-risk missile attacks on Israeli soil and Israel’s dramatic counterstrike overshadowed—but did not slow—the Yemeni Houthis’ near-daily missile barrages against ships in the Red Sea.
While attention has focused on these lethal standoffs, the most serious missile threat to U.S. national security is unfolding in Asia. There, the Aug. 2, 2019, end of the 1987 U.S.-Soviet Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty—which barred the United States and Soviet Union from fielding any nuclear or nonnuclear ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,500 kilometers (3,418 miles)—has sparked a quiet arms race in a region already on edge. As it embarks on its review of U.S. national defense, the administration of President Donald Trump should pay attention.
Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. military moved eagerly to seize the opportunities that the INF Treaty’s demise has opened in Asia by developing, testing, and fielding new ground-launched missiles that previously would have been prohibited.
But as new missiles begin arriving in the region, they bring with them many unappreciated risks. Countervailing reactions from adversaries, potentially including nuclear escalation, could leave the United States and its allies less safe even if the longer-range systems would prove useful in a future clash with China.
The United States is long due for a strategic reckoning around what the country might gain and lose in a crisis—or a war—from employing these weapons. Simply put, these new missile deployments are too important to be left solely to military planners.
Though it was intended to alleviate nuclear anxieties in Europe, the INF Treaty had serious implications in Asia, particularly as China strengthened its military. It left U.S. military planners in the region hamstrung as China, operating outside the limits of the treaty for the 32 years it was in place, amassed a significant missile stockpile, including medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles such as the DF-17, DF-21, and DF-26.
Today, however, Asia’s missile landscape has changed dramatically. In the absence of the INF Treaty, new, longer-range nonnuclear missile programs have quickly emerged in the United States. Meanwhile, China and North Korea have continued to accelerate and grow their missile arsenals. Finally, U.S. allies in the region—South Korea, Japan, and Australia—are pursuing new missile systems of their own, perceiving growing risks of war and fearful of political disarray in Washington impacting their ability to defend themselves.
In the United States, the Army has been leading the way when it comes to ground-fired missiles, though the Marine Corps has also been experimenting with new programs. Adrift as the counterinsurgency wars that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks waned, the Army in particular welcomed the end of the INF Treaty because it gave the service a clearer role in a possible conventional war in the Indo-Pacific. Army leaders have moved almost as quickly as technology will allow to develop and field the new capabilities.
The Army has focused on three main lines of effort: the Precision Strike Missile, which will initially have a range of about 500 km (310 miles); the mid-range Typhon system, which can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 2,500 km (1,553 miles); and the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (also known as Dark Eagle), which is still in development.
The service also has wasted little time in moving new systems into the Indo-Pacific. For example, it deployed its new intermediate-range missile system to the Philippines during the summer of 2024, where its temporary stay for use in joint exercises was extended indefinitely. The Marine Corps has moved more slowly, focusing its efforts on the shorter-range Naval Strike Missile. It is also investing in a system known as the Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires, which can ground-launch Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The U.S. military’s technical and operational progress comes with a significant caveat, however. Worryingly, it has occurred without an overarching political or military strategy to guide what are rapidly becoming high-stakes choices about where these systems should be deployed and how they should be used.
At times, U.S. military—and especially Army—decision-making has seemed to come well ahead of policymakers in Washington and foreign capitals. In 2022, for instance, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives raised concerns during a hearing that the Army had already invested so much in ground-launched missiles intended for Asia without the diplomatic agreements that would be needed to employ the new capabilities in the region during a war.
Then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth acknowledged the challenge but argued, “I don’t think it would be wise for us to wait to develop the kinds of weapons systems we need for a future conflict until we had the diplomatic agreements signed.”
Left unexamined, however, was the significant risk that the required access might never be granted, leaving the Army (and to a lesser extent, the Marines) with costly missile systems and munitions that are largely irrelevant when war begins.
The Army also appears to be out of sync with regional allies. When the Army announced that it hoped to deploy its intermediate-range missiles to southwest Japan for military exercises, the Japanese Ministry of Defense quickly sought to clarify that such a deployment would not happen in the near term, likely fearing domestic political backlash or retaliation from Beijing.
Meanwhile, the previous commander of U.S. Army forces in the Indo-Pacific, Gen. Charles A. Flynn (writing alongside Lt. Col. Sarah Starr), openly admitted his interest in turning temporary missile deployments in the region into permanent ones—perhaps the ultimate goal for the Typhon system in the Philippines. Flynn’s successor, Gen. Ronald P. Clark, may pursue a similar strategy.
The Army’s eagerness to bring new missile capabilities to the Indo-Pacific no doubt offers operational benefits, but there are risks, too. While the availability of such missiles may increase the firepower available to support U.S. military goals in a crisis, it could also encourage strikes against the allies that host such systems.
China might be more likely to target Japan or the Philippines in the context of an invasion of Taiwan, for example, if either country were hosting U.S. intermediate-range missile systems. Notably, there has not yet been a major increase in U.S. air defenses based in allied nations that might offset the risk incurred by new missile deployments.
Moreover, without broader strategic framing, the intentions behind these deployments may drive worst-case thinking in China, North Korea, and possibly even Russia, which may find parts of its far east in range of new U.S. missiles.
After all, deterrence is not borne of capability alone. At its core, deterrence is an act of communication toward one’s adversaries. Reassuring these countries that these missiles would not be employed for highly escalatory preemptive or even preventive strikes, including against their national leaderships or nuclear forces, is a tall order. Just as U.S. planners often reason on the basis of adversary capabilities alone, setting intent aside, so too will these countries look at the changing U.S. and allied missile posture as a source of insecurity.
These are not just arcane matters influencing defense policy and acquisitions—they may bear on the risk of nuclear war in the Indo-Pacific. If new intermediate-range weapons are ever to be used by the United States, it is likely that it would be in the context of an intense conventional war. Even if U.S. military goals are focused on tactical benefits, attacks during such a war against military bases hosting both nuclear and nonnuclear weapons—or against facilities that support military command and control functions—could be perceived by the state under attack as targeting its nuclear capabilities or even leadership.
Absent clear communication around new missile deployments, the United States risks heightening fears in China and North Korea that could make deliberate nuclear use by both or either of those states more likely. With potentially existential stakes, U.S. political leaders should be the ones providing strategic guidance to the military and making decisions about which missiles to deploy, as well as when and where—not military planners.
Complicating matters further is the role of U.S. allies. South Korea has long sought to build and stockpile missiles capable of striking North Korean nuclear capabilities and launchers, and Japan, following a sea change in its national defense policy two years ago, is beginning to adopt “counterstrike” capabilities that could do much of the same to China.
The United States should ensure that it is on the same page as its allies about what types of targets might be struck during a war. Well-armed allies offer advantages, but an ally sparking unwanted escalation by undertaking strikes against Chinese or North Korean nuclear facilities would not suit U.S. goals.
Asia’s changed missile landscape demands a more vigilant posture from the United States, but Washington should not sleepwalk into new deployments. With the risk of nuclear use ever present, U.S. civilian leaders need to start a serious strategic dialogue domestically and with allies in the region regarding the values and risks associated with new missiles and their uses. Some of this began under the Biden administration with South Korea, Japan, and Australia, and the Trump administration should build on these efforts.
While deterrence remains necessary and valuable, the United States should continue to seek dialogue with China and, if possible, with North Korea on the risks that are simmering in the Indo-Pacific. The fundamental principle driving the shifting approach to U.S. military power in Asia should be to do everything possible to avoid unwanted conflict while mitigating unnecessary risks.