U.S. Air Force to Deploy More Warplanes To Asia In 2021

The U.S. Air Force will increase the number of warplanes deployed to Asia in 2021 while boosting the number of airfields across the region.

It aims to prevent a “Second Pearl Harbor” by dispersing warplanes across airfields located on Pacific Island nations such as Palau in accord with the concept of distributed basing.

In 2017, the Air Force developed the “Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept to prevent this nightmare scenario from occurring. ACE is expanding the number of bases in the Indo-Pacific from which air force units can generate combat sorties against the Chinese.It will build small combat hubs to house quick-reaction forces from austere locations in Indo-Pacific and around the globe.

Much of the Air Force’s warfighting strength, the headquarters of the United States Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) and its command and control infrastructure is rooted in Hawaii, which remains within range of Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander, PACAF, has announced an expansion of ACE in 2021, as well as expanded training intended to give airmen the capability to operate from anywhere at a moment’s notice.

“We will continue to expand the ACE envelope and be able to add aspects and capability to be able to execute on a much broader scale, and we’re going to continue to work with our allies and partners,” said Wilsbach.

“One of the objectives of ACE is to be very agile, very mobile. And from the standpoint of those observing it, it will look random,” he said.

He was referring to the Air Force’s efforts to make the movements of its units more difficult for Chinese and Russian reconnaissance to detect and interpret.

Wilsbach said being nimble is the only way the Air Force can operate across the millions of miles of terrain in its area of responsibility. PACAF covers an area of more than 100 million square miles, 44 countries and 2 billion people.

ACE is prevalent within the Air Force and “almost every exercise that we do now has an ACE component to it,” said Wilsbach.

“Our intent with ACE is not to build these mega-bases that take an immense amount of infrastructure, which translates into a lot of costs.”

ACE continues to expand across multiple small islands in the Pacific, including Tinian Island, which is part of Saipan, a U.S. territory.

Wilsbach also said Northrop Grumman F-22 Raptor stealth fighters landed on Palau later in late November and were met by a Lockheed C-130 Hercules and crew to “hot-refuel” them. This technique allows fighters to get airborne faster.

“That was the first time we’ve done a fighter ACE event in Palau,” said Wilsbach,

In late September, a panel of military experts told the House Armed Services Committee establishing more U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific region will ensure the survivability of the U.S. military to a Chinese attack and complicate targeting of U.S. forces.

Defense policymakers again focused on basing, especially distributed basing, after the Republic of Palau earlier in the month consented to the U.S. building military bases in its territory.

Palauan President Tommy Remengesau Jr. said his country wants to host new U.S. military facilities, including ports and air bases.

“Palau’s request to the U.S. military remains simple – build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly,” said Remengesau.

Source: btimesonline.com

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