A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon has not fully planned for the personnel or infrastructure needed to support Guam's missile defense buildup. The report highlights missing strategies, unclear timelines, and insufficient plans to support thousands of incoming troops.
The GAO report, released this week, evaluates the Department of Defense's (DoD) progress in building out the Guam Defense System (GDS), a multi-layered air and missile defense network the Pentagon has deemed essential to U.S. security interests in the Indo-Pacific.
While the report credits the DoD with designating lead service branches and launching initial planning efforts, it warns that major gaps remain, including no clear strategy for how responsibilities will be transferred, how Army units will integrate with existing operations, or how many personnel will be assigned to the island.
That absence of planning could delay construction of basic support infrastructure, like housing, schools, and medical facilities, for service members and their families.
Robert Underwood, chair of the Pacific Center for Island Security, said the report highlights deeper systemic issues.
"There's lack of coordination, a lack of leadership, and a fair amount of inter-service rivalry," Underwood said, which "needs to be resolved before this planning continues at any significant pace."
Underwood also expressed concern over the report's omission of key details related to housing on Guam. While the GAO acknowledges a lack of capacity to house incoming military personnel, it redacts one paragraph on the matter, citing "controlled unclassified information" — a designation that means the content is not secret, but still restricted.
"There seems to be something there about the housing situation that they don't want people to know about," Underwood said. "And that's really very disturbing.".
Over the next decade, Guam is expected to absorb more than 10,000 additional military personnel and dependents, including Marines relocating from Okinawa. Underwood warned that, unlike other sites in the region, such as planned divert airfields elsewhere in the Pacific, Guam will house these service members full time, which can put pressure on the island's limited housing and infrastructure.
The DoD has yet to respond to KPRG's inquiry on their commitment to a clear timeline or deployment strategy, and their plan to address local implications like housing and infrastructure.
