U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons from the Colorado Air National Guard’s 120th Fighter Squadron taxi for takeoff during a training sortie June 7, 2017, at Kadena Air Base, Japan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Naoto Anazawa)
WASHINGTON — A relative shortfall of air base fortifications on the part of the US has created an “imbalance” in the Indo-Pacific that favors China, requiring renewed American efforts to shore up base defenses as a potential war with Beijing looms, according to a new think tank report.
Since 2010, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has undertaken a vast campaign to expand and reinforce its own airfields resulting in significantly more runways and over 3,000 aircraft shelters — the latter enough to cover the “vast majority” of Beijing’s combat aircraft, Hudson Institute authors Thomas Shugart and Tim Walton write in their report “Concrete Sky: Air Base Hardening in the Western Pacific.”
American efforts, by contrast, have remained “modest” in recent years with much smaller growth of aircraft shelters and ramp space, the report says. In the event of a war over Taiwan, where observers fear China may invade and invite a US response, the report notes that greater Chinese airfield capacity within range of the island nation “creates an imbalance in which PLA forces would need to fire far fewer ‘shots’ to suppress or destroy US, allied, and partner airfields than the converse.”
The difference is stark: If US and allied forces are operating from airfields in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, the authors calculate that the “imbalance” favors China by roughly 25 percent, but that number grows to 88 percent if the US was forced to operate only from Japan.
Some American efforts, like the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment method to disperse operations, have been rolled out in response to the rising threat of China, but the report argues that more is needed to protect vulnerable aircraft parked on the ground amid the advent of precision weapons.
The report offers three specific initiatives for policymakers to pursue, with the first aimed at inducing China to spend more on defenses and less on offensive capabilities as a result. According to the authors, the US should field cheaper and more easily-produced standoff and stand-in munitions that could hold relevant airfield targets at risk, and which could be paired with other measures like new concepts of operation.
Secondly, the report calls for improving the “resilience” of air base infrastructure, particularly by building more aircraft shelters and expanding airfields — including for bases in the US. The authors warn planners not to have the “distorted perception” of hardened shelters as “an anachronism” just because American forces made such quick work on them in the Gulf War. They still have value for defense, especially when complemented with effective, active air defenses. Policymakers should focus on other ways to make bases themselves more resilient as well, including by ensuring damage can be rapidly repaired and that the proper “low-cost and high-capacity” kinetic and non-kinetic defenses are in place, the report says.
RELATED: ‘Sanctuary’ no longer: New Air Force plan seeks to rejuvenate installations
The report’s third initiative calls for evolving the US’s force design toward long-endurance aircraft that can operate from distant locations and spend considerable time in the air, as well as systems that can fly from damaged or non-existent runways. Regardless of the fate of projects like a next-gen fighter or futuristic tanker for the Air Force, which would likely satisfy requirements for operating at relevant ranges and in contested airspaces, the report notes that military planners “cannot hope future aircraft procurement will obviate its current need to enhance the resilience of its airfield operations.”
In addition to three main points, the report recommends additional small but key steps for policymakers. For example, as the Air Force and Army debate the future of base defense, the report calls for shifting resources and personnel “away from ground maneuver and toward” air defense artillery. Lawmakers could also explore forcing the creation of new interservice agreements so that the Army provides air defenses to the Air Force and Navy, or alternatively oversee some transfer of those roles to a relevant service.
“Worldwide, US airfields face the threat of attack,” the report says. “The US Department of Defense can continue to largely ignore this menace, inviting PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression and potentially losing a war, or it can face the reality and organize and resource its forces and infrastructure to prevail.”
