Air Force To Build Alternate Airbase On Tinian Island In Case Guam Gets Knocked Out
With the threat of China rising, the Pentagon is looking for new airfields and to expand existing ones for distributed operations in the Pacific.
ByTyler RogowayDecember 1, 2020
According to reports, the Department of Defense is moving ahead with plans to formally build a backup air base at Tinian Island, located just 100 miles to the north of its giant and highly strategic U.S. military airbase on Guam, known as Andersen Air Force Base. This comes as the Pentagon is working to expand its existing airfields located deep in the Pacific and even create new ones that it could use during a major peer-state clash, namely with China, in the vast region. It is all part of an emerging distributed combat operations strategy that will likely be as much about survival as about getting an advantage on the enemy, at least during the opening stages of a potential conflict in the Pacific Theater. Anderson Air Force Base is so key to U.S. strategy that the possibility that a natural disaster could knock out
While Guam isn't as at risk of adversary missile attacks as America's military outposts located in Japan, or even South Korea, its ability to continue operating during a barrage of ever more plentiful and capable Chinese ballistic missiles is highly questionable at best, leaving alternative airfields both nearby and far away, absolutely critical to a sustained a war effort. Wake Island, which is located 1,500 miles east of Guam, is the largest such installation. You can read about the upgrades to that remote island outpost in this recent feature of ours.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37885/air-force-to-build-alternate-airbase-on-tinian-island-in-case-guam-gets-knocked-out
