The United States military has announced that one of its nuclear submarines has reloaded long-range cruise missiles at a crucial military hub in the western Pacific Ocean. Photos released on Sunday by the U.S. Department of Defense showed the USS Florida, a conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine, conducted an expeditionary reload of an unknown number of Tomahawk missiles at Naval Base Guam on July 2.
The deployment and rearmament of the Florida in Guam coincided with China’s strengthening military cooperation with Russia. The quasi-alliance conducted a joint naval exercise and patrol recently. It is not common for the United States to disclose the exact locations of its submarines, much less volunteer information about the composition of its armaments. However, surfacing a stealthy boat can send a military signal to potential adversaries like China, Russia and North Korea.
Guam is located 1,500 miles east of the Philippines and south of Japan, making it an ideal forward base for staging and projecting U.S. military power in the western Pacific. The American territory also forms the so-called second island chain, a series of islands stretching from Japan in the north to New Guinea in the south.
