Josh – great article and it certainly opens the door for a broader discussion of reconstitution of our global power projection infrastructure and our ability to deter and defeat adversaries. In 1997 the Air Force think tank did a year long analysis of this question as it pertained to the “anti-access threat in the Southeast Pacific/China.

Bottomline – there are opportunities in the region to reconstitute and build the infrastructure required to operate in the area. In general there is a shortage of airfields that can support shorter range jets and logistics. The Chinese have spent 30 years making those that do exist more vulnerable or taken them off the board politically.

The Pentagon knew the problem existed, studied it, quantified it, identified required corrective actions, strategies and costs. Then we gutted the long range bomber force, ignored the inability of Carrier groups to generate volume or get close enough to the fight and stuck our collective head in the sand for 25 years.

Hi James and thanks for the great question. In my opinion, I think Japan is making it clear that they are changing their strategy military posture in response to the growing threats from China and North Korea (https://apnews.com/article/japan-us-military-command-missile-china-4e97f4cb01cfef7b6db8fb1a5df771e4). Currently, I haven’t obtained information that suggest Japan will lead efforts to recommission older airfields in the Asia-Pacific region and it seems more likely that Japan will encourage the US to expand military presence and capabilities at active airbases hosted by Japan. The US has made some early strides towards this overall objective by recently announcing the conversion of US Forces – Japan into a war fighting command which will report directly to the US Indo-Pacific Command (https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/07/us-forces-japan-be-upgraded-warfighting-command/398386/). Additionally, the US is increasing available air power and advanced aviation capabilities based throughout Japan (https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07/f-15ex-f-35-headed-to-japan-under-new-dod-tactical-aircraft-laydown/), and Japan recently achieved some critical military manufacturing milestones when it was recently announced that Japan had completed its first local produced F-35 (https://www.dcma.mil/News/Article-View/Article/1209525/first-japan-built-f-35-prepares-for-take-off/), and the start-up of AMRAMM and PAC-3 production (https://www.airandspaceforces.com/japan-steps-up-missile-production-in-deal-with-u-s/). Thanks again for the question and please ask more if I missed the mark in this response.