With new missile system, U.S. to keep Chinese navy guessing

The Air Force C-130 transport plane dipped down on the sun-baked airfield of this remote island in the northern Philippines, delivering a weapon system designed to give the U.S. an edge in the intensifying superpower standoff in the Pacific.

- Gabriele Steinhauser

The Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or Nemesis, is an antiship missile launcher mounted on a remote-controlled truck. The dumbbell-shaped islet where it landed lies just 120 miles south of Taiwan.

For the Marines, the Nemesis's flight to Batan was a key test in a high-stakes retooling aimed at readying the military's rapid-response force for a war with China in some of the world's most strategic, but increasingly tense, waterways.

The prospect of an armed conflict with China—whether over Taiwan, the self-governed democracy Beijing claims as its own, or the contested shipping lanes of the South China Sea—has the U.S. playing catch-up. While American forces were bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, China built up the world's biggest navy and a formidable arsenal of missiles aimed at making swaths of the Pacific off-limits to its adversaries.

The Nemesis—pronounced "nemesis"—was designed to erode that lead. It takes advantage of natural chokepoints like Batan to raise the cost of access for Chinese warships.

Initially built to be launched from ships, the Norway-made Naval Strike Missiles the Nemesis fires can sink vessels some 115 miles away, skimming the water and adjusting their trajectory to follow and hit a moving target.