The guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey fires a Tomahawk land attack missile on April 13, 2018, against the Syrian government. Washington could be set for a fruitless search to deploy its intermediate-range missiles against China in the western Pacific.
"Sooner rather than later" — that's the United States' desired timeline to deploy conventional land-based intermediate-range missiles in the western Pacific, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper. And now that the United States is out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty , there are no treaty clauses — or technical impediments — preventing it from placing missiles in the region to check the rise of China. Such considerations, however, are just half the battle: Facing recalcitrance from regional allies concerned about becoming a target for China and Russia, as well as the latter powers' carrot-and-stick approach to ensure the weapons don't appear near their shores, the United States will find it a far tougher task to actually deploy the weapons in the western Pacific.
