Gamechanger For U.S. Navy Against China: New Anti-Ship Missile Dramatically Boosts Firepower (From Forbes)

Many of the U.S. Navy’s surface combatants lack the capability to engage hostile warships. That capability hasn’t been needed much since the Cold War ended, but now China is surging in the Western Pacific and the Navy must respond. One powerful solution is the Lockheed Martin Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), which combines long range and stealth survivability with a lethal thousand-pound warhead. LRASM is the epitome of a smart weapon, able to receive target updates in flight or to arrive at its aimpoint autonomously despite enemy jamming of GPS. It can skim the sea when targets are well defended,and it can pick out the most vulnerable point on a target to hit. LRASM is the perfect response to Beijing’s anti-access strategy in East Asia, an “anti-egress” weapons that keeps the Chinese navy bottled up near home. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.