Never, never, never give up an airfield. A nation with global responsibilities must have a global web of mutually supporting air fields each within range of three to four other airfields. Add 12-16 mobile ones ( Aircraft carriers). Not every, and perhaps most do not need permanently assigned aircraft. Even better if these airfields can co-locate with ports. These are the strategic lily pads that make positioning, staging, repositioning, deploying and evacuating possible. It is the strategic flexibility that allows you to mass or disburse as circumstances dictate. It forces your enemies to consider far more scenarios and potential threats. You can stage fuel, supplies and ammunition, billeting and medical facilities. While installations, even manned with minimal personnel are not inexpensive they are cheap compared to the alternatives and the lack of options. This is global, maneuver warfare at the installation level.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union we engaged in an ill advised , massive draw down of facilities both in CONUS and overseas with the further mirage of cost savings by creating mega bases in violation of all principles of distributing valuable resources from sabotage, terrorism, conventional and unconventional attacks. Most of this occurred with highly questionable claims of cost savings and virtually no consideration for actual war time considerations.
All are excellent points, Doug. For me, the two best take aways from your post are: "they are strategic lily pads", and "global, maneuver warfare at the installation level." It is close to the Philippines and not too far from Australia.
Peleliu. Finally someone is on the case here, both the history and the new airfield. The great historical antecedents for defense of the Western Pacific in the industrial age are the strategic tension between the US and Imperial Japan 1905-1941, and then the Great Pacific War of 1941-1945. Some technologies have changed since, but the geography and the basic dynamics are still the same. Our current strategic engagement with China can be much more readily grasped by looking at it through the lens of the Pacific War and the three tense decades leading up to it.
The new airfields are a very good thing. Each one gives air access to broad swaths of the Western Pacific, both for offense and for defense. Having many of them is a good idea because PLAN can suppress some of them some of the time, but not all of them all the time, as Lincoln might have put it.
Never, never, never give up an airfield. A nation with global responsibilities must have a global web of mutually supporting air fields each within range of three to four other airfields. Add 12-16 mobile ones ( Aircraft carriers). Not every, and perhaps most do not need permanently assigned aircraft. Even better if these airfields can co-locate with ports. These are the strategic lily pads that make positioning, staging, repositioning, deploying and evacuating possible. It is the strategic flexibility that allows you to mass or disburse as circumstances dictate. It forces your enemies to consider far more scenarios and potential threats. You can stage fuel, supplies and ammunition, billeting and medical facilities. While installations, even manned with minimal personnel are not inexpensive they are cheap compared to the alternatives and the lack of options. This is global, maneuver warfare at the installation level.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union we engaged in an ill advised , massive draw down of facilities both in CONUS and overseas with the further mirage of cost savings by creating mega bases in violation of all principles of distributing valuable resources from sabotage, terrorism, conventional and unconventional attacks. Most of this occurred with highly questionable claims of cost savings and virtually no consideration for actual war time considerations.
All are excellent points, Doug. For me, the two best take aways from your post are: "they are strategic lily pads", and "global, maneuver warfare at the installation level." It is close to the Philippines and not too far from Australia.
I hope we don't garrison the island with the SIF!
Peleliu. Finally someone is on the case here, both the history and the new airfield. The great historical antecedents for defense of the Western Pacific in the industrial age are the strategic tension between the US and Imperial Japan 1905-1941, and then the Great Pacific War of 1941-1945. Some technologies have changed since, but the geography and the basic dynamics are still the same. Our current strategic engagement with China can be much more readily grasped by looking at it through the lens of the Pacific War and the three tense decades leading up to it.
The new airfields are a very good thing. Each one gives air access to broad swaths of the Western Pacific, both for offense and for defense. Having many of them is a good idea because PLAN can suppress some of them some of the time, but not all of them all the time, as Lincoln might have put it.
While researching hellsapoppin ridge and the birth of modern close air support I came across this unrelated but interesting article.
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/MCH/Marine-Corps-History-Winter-2016/The-Aftermath-of-Hell/