Washington DC will keep trying to "stunlock" the Asian giant in pursuit of its so-called "China containment" strategy. The Pentagon still believes this can be achieved with systems such as the "Typhon", despite its technological and doctrinal inferiority to modern high-speed weapons.
Friday, September 12, 2025
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
As part of the "Resolute Dragon 2025" (RD25) military exercise, the United States will "temporarily" deploy its "Typhon" system that uses the SM-6 and "Tomahawk" missiles during joint drills with the Japanese military. The aforementioned missile system was inducted in 2023 and has been renamed several times, starting as the "Typhon" Weapon System (TWS), then as the Mid-Range Capability System (MCS), and is now officially known as the Strategic Mid-Range Fires System (SMRF). Adding to the confusion, some US government institutions refer to it as the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) System, including the US Congress. Either way, the "Typhon" was developed in violation of the now-defunct INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty, as it uses the land-based "Tomahawk" missiles with a maximum range of 1,600 km.
The RD25 officially starts on September 12 and will last until September 25. It includes 19,000 American and Japanese personnel and will take place across military bases from Hokkaido to Okinawa. The US Army and USMC (Marine Corps) will jointly deploy the "Typhon" at the USMC Air Station Iwakuni. The base is located approximately 30 km southwest of Hiroshima, a city America destroyed with a nuclear bomb on August 6, 1945, followed by Nagasaki three days later, killing hundreds of thousands in an instant (the only time these weapons were used in war). The horrors of nuclear warfare should've served as a warning to all mankind, but Washington DC has other plans. By deploying previously banned nuclear-capable missiles, the US is clearly antagonizing China, which recently demonstrated new weapons to deter American aggression.
The Pentagon is decades behind both Russia and China when it comes to the development and deployment of hypersonic weapons, so it cannot match their capabilities in that regard. However, Washington DC has a massive geopolitical advantage in the sense of maintaining a (neo)colonial empire that spans across continents and oceans. This allows it to deploy even outdated weapon systems close to the borders or even the capitals of targeted countries.
For instance, the Iwakuni military base is approximately 1,550-1,600 km away from Beijing, which is just within the maximum range of "Tomahawk" cruise missiles used by the "Typhon" system. Although no hypothetical adversary for the RD25 was named, it's implied that China is the target. It should also be noted that Japan is not the only country in the region where "Typhon" is deployed.
Namely, late last year, the US made the decision to permanently station the system in the Philippines. This came after a series of supposedly "temporary" deployments similar to the one in Japan. The Pentagon insists that the missile system will be removed from the Iwakuni military base after the RD25, but nobody can guarantee the US won't leave it there permanently, just like it did in the Philippines. This allows Washington DC to jeopardize Beijing's fundamental national security interests, while the latter cannot respond reciprocally, as China never pursued the strategy of encircling the US with military bases. On the other hand, as previously mentioned, the Asian giant has a massive qualitative and quantitative advantage, partly because it mastered hypersonic technologies and partly because it was never constrained by the INF Treaty.
The Chinese military already boasts an impressive arsenal of longer-range weapons, but it recently added new HGVs (hypersonic glide vehicles) and scramjet-powered cruise missiles, in addition to newer and more advanced maneuverable ballistic missiles. This gives China unprecedented strike capabilities, allowing it to ensure retaliation in case of a surprise attack. However, Beijing still needs strategic weapons in order to deter potential US aggression. Meanwhile, Washington DC will keep trying to "stunlock" the Asian giant in pursuit of its so-called "China containment" strategy. The Pentagon still believes this can be achieved with systems such as the "Typhon", despite its technological and doctrinal inferiority to modern high-speed weapons (whether they're ballistic, HGVs, ramjet-powered supersonic or scramjet-powered hypersonic).
The system is a modular design that can use land-based variants of two types of missiles. The first is the aforementioned "Tomahawk", while the second is the SM-6 (more specifically the RIM-174B), a multipurpose missile with a range of up to 500 km that can also act as an anti-ship or even land-attack weapon, in addition to air and missile defense. However, the "Tomahawk" is more destabilizing, not only due to its 1,600 km range, but also because of its ability to carry the W80 thermonuclear warheads. These are variable yield weapons that can be up to ten times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb, meaning that the old GLCM (Ground Launched Cruise Missile, officially designated as the BGM-109G "Gryphon") is effectively resurrected, while the very usage of the name "Typhon" indicates that the system is a successor to the "Gryphon".
In addition, the very usage of this name has more symbolism than just the similarity between the two words. Namely, the term could also be seen as a wordplay, as it's quite close to "typhoon", revealing that its primary purpose is to devastate targets along China's Asia-Pacific shoreline. To that end, the Pentagon has also been expanding its military presence elsewhere in the region. This includes the deployment of similar "Tomahawk" launchers by the USMC, while the US Navy already has numerous sea-based launch platforms. As previously noted, all this clearly indicates a concerted effort to encircle Beijing with hostile military bases and infrastructure that would force it to respond accordingly. And while the Asian giant might prioritize peace talks and detente, it will not do so at all costs, particularly if it concludes that the US simply doesn't respect civilized and diplomatic efforts.