{"id":19845,"date":"2021-06-11T15:00:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T22:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=19845"},"modified":"2021-06-11T12:22:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T19:22:40","slug":"anticipating-war-with-china-the-u-s-air-force-is-fanning-out-across-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/anticipating-war-with-china-the-u-s-air-force-is-fanning-out-across-the-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Anticipating War With China, The U.S. Air Force Is Fanning Out Across The Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"

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David Axe<\/a> – June 7, 2021<\/p>\n

For years, the U.S. Air Force concentrated its warplanes at just two bases in the western Pacific: for fighters, Kadena Air Force Base in Japan\u2019s Okinawa prefecture; and for bombers and big support planes, Guam\u2019s Andersen Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

Beijing eyed these mega-bases and devised a simple strategy for suppressing U.S. air power in the region. Build a couple thousand non-nuclear ballistic missiles and, in wartime, lob them at the bases until their runways, aprons, hangars, fuel tanks and warehouses are nothing but craters.<\/p>\n

After years of build-up, the Chinese rocket force possesses around 1,300 ground-launched missiles with sufficient range to hit Kadena and Andersen from mainland China.<\/p>\n

The USAF is keenly aware of the threat. It has its own plan for dodging the missile barrages. The idea is to spread out hundreds of warplanes across potentially dozens of smaller bases\u2014thus diluting the striking power of China\u2019s rocket force.<\/p>\n

The Air Force won\u2019t say exactly which bases are part of its plan, but it\u2019s possible to make educated guesses. American territories and small island countries offer the most dependable facilities. Arguably the most important bases\u2014in the Philippines\u2014are accessible only at the whim of that country\u2019s mercurial president.<\/p>\n

The emerging map of the USAF\u2019s expanding base network also reveals where the service has potential airfield gaps, most glaringly in the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan. In that gap, the U.S. Navy\u2019s Pacific Fleet might lend its sister service a helping hand\u2014and deploy some of its 10 aircraft carriers and big-deck assault ships.<\/p>\n

The Air Force maintains a master list of what Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the head of Pacific Air Forces, described as \u201cevery single piece of concrete\u201d<\/a> in the Pacific region.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Axe – June 7, 2021 For years, the U.S. Air Force concentrated its warplanes at just two bases in the western Pacific: for fighters, Kadena Air Force Base in Japan\u2019s Okinawa prefecture; and for bombers and big support planes, Guam\u2019s Andersen Air Force Base. Beijing eyed these mega-bases and devised a simple strategy for … Continue reading Anticipating War With China, The U.S. Air Force Is Fanning Out Across The Pacific<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[2442,12,15865,511,6857,15866,1492,73,821,8],"class_list":["post-19845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-red-horse","tag-air-force","tag-china","tag-gen-kenneth-wilsbach","tag-japan","tag-okinawa","tag-pacific-fleet","tag-philippines","tag-taiwan","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-5a5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19847,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19845\/revisions\/19847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}