The Best Defense is a Good Offense

We’ve had repeated discussions about the defense of Guam (or any forward base) and everyone except the military seems to recognize that requires a layered defense which includes ships, planes, missiles, mines, etc.
 
However, there’s another layer to defense that never gets mentioned and that is offense. 
 
The best defense is a good offense.
 
This means that if you can destroy the source of attacks before they even launch, there’s nothing to defend and your defense is perfect.  Rather than shoot down missiles, find and destroyer the launchers (shoot archers not arrows).  Rather than try to intercept aircraft, destroy the aircraft’s bases.  Rather than search for submarines, destroy them pierside and destroy their shore support facilities.  And so on.
 
Offense is the first, best, defensive layer.
 
We just noted that the military is making little or no serious effort to build up Guam’s defenses and, indeed, may be reducing those defenses in response to environmental concerns (see, “BaseDefense is a Joke”).  As bad as that is, there has not even been the slightest thought given to incorporating an offensive layer into Guam’s defense.  The Air Force is not planning to conduct strikes against Chinese ballistic missile launch sites, airbases, or naval ports.  The Navy has no plans to launch cruise missiles at Chinese airbases and naval ports.  The Navy has no plan to attack Chinese submarines in their home ports or destroy their support facilities.
 
Some might attempt to make the argument, purely on faith, that the military does have plans but they just haven’t made them public.  That might seem like a reasonable proposition, on the face of it, but in our society there’s no such thing as a secret.  Further, if we did have such plans, we’d be practicing them and there have been no such exercises conducted … ever.  Recall the WWII War Plan Orange?  We had plans for fighting Japan and we conducted practice exercises in the form of Fleet Problems for years prior to the start of war.  There were no secrets even back then.  Besides, at least in a general sense, you’d like your potential enemy to know that you have plans to defeat them and that you’re diligently practicing so … no need to be overly concerned about secrecy.
 
The obvious conclusion is that we have no offensive plans to support Guam’s defensive efforts.  This must change.  We desperately need to get serious about the war with China and start planning, practicing, and engaging  …  offensively.