Retired Marine pitches Guam-Taiwan partnership to mass-produce drones
- Admin
- Aug 31
- 5 min read
By Ron Rocky Coloma
A retired Marine captain who now leads a Guam drone company set the tone on Aug. 29 for a different kind of security conversation on island. Not just bases and budgets. Factories and supply chains.
“Guam's geographic position has always been the keystone to the Indo-Pacific, regardless of which entity was in charge, all the way from Spanish time and to the present day,” said Charlie Hermosa, former Marine captain and CEO of Bella Wings Aviation.
He argued that the fight for regional stability will hinge on logistics and mass production, and that Guam’s next strategic edge could come from building things quickly with partners who can scale.
“Ukraine and Russia have really shown us the magnitude of being able to mass-produce. So, forget about these shiny, million-dollar drones. We’re looking at mass production of drones, for example. That’s just one example,” Hermosa said. “With this lateral relationship we’re trying to develop, this is where Guam and Taiwan are strategically positioned.”
The forum, “Guam’s Role in a Free and Safe Indo-Pacific,” hosted by the University of Guam’s Regional Center for Public Policy, brought together Del. James Moylan, Speaker Frank Blas Jr., Hermosa and a visiting delegation of 40 youth ambassadors from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The event doubled as a welcome for the visiting Taiwanese students and a reminder that Guam’s most immediate security partners are often the people who live next door.
The mix of elected leaders, veterans and students produced a practical conversation about how Guam can move from being a fixed target to a nimble hub, not only for defense planning but also for manufacturing and disaster response.
Hermosa described a working relationship with Taiwanese counterparts aimed at reshaping the region’s supply chain.
“It’s always been said that logistics wins wars,” he said. “One of the things that we’re trying to build now is a partnership with Taiwan, because we know that as things evolve, we’re going to have to work together to create things, develop things for manufacturing across the board.”
He pointed to Taiwan’s existing role in drone production. Approximately 35 to 40 percent of drone components are sourced from Taiwan before final assembly in the mainland United States, he said. His vision is to shorten that chain and bring more of the work online in Guam.
“One of the things that we want to do is be able to move that up and make it come online,” he said.
Hermosa argued that Guam’s location and workforce could be the missing link between U.S. defense demand and Taiwan’s industrial capacity.
“If there’s anybody that you can go back to Taiwan, any companies that are interested in coming, tell them that they have to come here. Take a look at our island,” he told the youth delegation. “We have the workforce, but we want to be able to develop in the same sense as the way that you have to develop.”
Hermosa framed Guam’s role in the U.S. Marine Corps’ modernization as a shift toward smaller, faster units that can move and respond quickly across the second island chain.
“The force design really is to be able to create these systems that are very fast and mobile,” Hermosa said. “The way Guam is going to be set up is we’re going to be almost like a quick reaction force, fast, nimble, flexible and able to react at a minute’s notice when anything happens around this region.”
He said Guam’s relevance is not just about hosting bases but also in producing hardware. “One of the things that the president is actually trying to do is really promote that integration with commercial companies,” he said. “We’re going to be able to reach back and take the drones right off the shelf, put them into the military and put them out there where it’s needed. … Those days of having just a vacuum style of planning with just military procurement, it is done.”
Hermosa said the manufacturing push also ties to civilian needs. “We want to be ready for anything that happens,” he said. “If we want to be able to support, whether it’s typhoon response or defense missions, we want to be ready and able to support any mission at hand.”
Hermosa also floated another form of regional resource: veterans. “We’ve had almost 40 years of veterans, many who have retired throughout Micronesia, who were involved with protecting the Indo-Pacific during their careers,” he said. “So we need to look at those veterans, and hopefully Guam can be linked as the central location for a regional VA, including all our brothers and sisters who have served throughout the freely associated states. We can harness and use them as a fifth echelon to assist Guam, the Pacific and Taiwan.”
Moylan, Guam’s nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress, placed the conversation inside Washington’s budget and posture debates.
“My duty is to provide enough funding in the nation’s budget to defend the nation, to defend freedom, to defend Taiwan’s freedom, the Philippines’ freedom, Japan’s freedom, all our allies and Australia,” said Moylan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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Moylan added that Guam maintains the majority of ammunition in the Indo-Pacific and large stores of fuel. “Part of our duty also is to defend the nation and defend our allies through the amount of ammunition we maintain,” he said.
Speaker Frank Blas Jr. voiced support for Guam’s strategic role while pressing for balance with daily life. “Security isn’t free, but at the same time, we’ve got to make sure that there’s a balance between what we need to keep ourselves safe and how we’re going to be able to provide for our daily needs,” he said.
Blas also pointed to cultural ties between CHamorus and southern Taiwan. “In certain areas of southern Taiwan, you can fit them into our villages and they’ll look just like us, and we’ll look just like them,” he said. “We are both basically in the middle of two superpowers. And last time I checked, based on the weather patterns, if we get hit by a storm, eventually you’re going to get hit by the same one.”
Panelists agreed that resilience is not only about interceptors and radars. It is also about power plants, backup batteries and safe roads for heavy trucks.
“It’s one approach with the federal government, military here and the government of Guam. We share our water, we share our power, we share our roads,” Moylan said.
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