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SINGAPORE, Aug 14 – The U.S. Navy’s deployment of new extremely long-range air-to-air missiles in the Indo-Pacific could erase China’s advantage in aerial reach, experts say, part of an intensifying focus on projecting power amid high tensions in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AIM-174B, developed from the readily available Raytheon (RTX.N), opens new tab<\/a> SM-6 air defence missile, is the longest-range such missile the United States has ever fielded and was officially acknowledged in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has three key advantages: it can fly several times farther than the next-best U.S. option, the AIM-120 AMRAAM; it does not require new production lines; and it is compatible with the aircraft of at least one ally, Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crucially, a weapon such as the AIM-174B, which can attack aerial targets as far away as 400 km (250 miles), outranges China’s PL-15 missile, allowing U.S. jets to keep threats farther from aircraft carriers, and safely strike “high-value” Chinese targets, such as command-and-control planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The United States can ensure the safety of their important assets, such as carrier groups, and launch long-range strikes on PLA targets,” said Chieh Chung, a researcher at a Taipei-based thinktank, the Association of Strategic Foresight, using an abbreviation for the People’s Liberation Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The West has not easily been able to do that until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AIM-120, the standard long-range missile for U.S. aircraft, has a maximum range of about 150 km (93 miles), which requires the launching aircraft to fly deeper into contested territory, exposing aircraft carriers to greater danger of anti-ship attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any type of South China Sea conflict<\/a>, within the so-called First Island Chain, which runs roughly from Indonesia northeast to the Japanese mainland, means the U.S. Navy would operate within few hundred kilometres of its Chinese<\/a> adversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n