U.S. boosts ‘resilience and survivability’ of Indo-Pacific air bases

FORUM Staff
The United States is bolstering its air bases against potential attacks to ensure a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
The U.S. continues “to invest in infrastructure and technology to enhance the resilience and survivability of our bases and facilities across the theater, including hardening airfields and buildings while investing in advanced security systems to protect our personnel and assets,” a spokesperson for U.S. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), the air component of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), told the Voice of America (VOA) news service.
The U.S. has three air bases in Japan, two in South Korea and others in Diego Garcia, Guam and Micronesia, as well as access to military installations in Australia, the Philippines and Singapore. USINDOPACOM also commands bases in Alaska and Hawaii. More than 420 aircraft are under PACAF command.
VIDEO CREDIT: STAFF SGT. BENJAMIN BUGENIG/STAFF SGT. KRISTINE LEGATE/U.S. AIR FORCE
Analysts and lawmakers in recent months have highlighted the need to harden U.S. air bases against potential attacks amid the Chinese Communist Party’s increasing aggression in the region.
The U.S. Air Force has more than $916 million available to enhance logistics, maintenance capabilities, and prepositioning of equipment, munitions, fuel and material in the Indo-Pacific through the fiscal year 2024 Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which was established by the U.S. Congress to further a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, according to VOA.
“While we are continually improving our theater posture, warfighting advantage and integration with Allies and Partners, Pacific Air Forces stands ready every day to respond to anything that poses a threat to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” the PACAF spokesperson said.
In addition to accelerating construction of hardened shelters, the Air Force is diversifying defenses to include additional camouflage, concealment and deception, and advancing non-kinetic defensive solutions such as electronic warfare, high-powered microwaves and laser technologies, according to its PACAF Strategy 2030.

U.S. military planners also have distributed operations, effectively spreading forces throughout the region, while upgrading airfields in places such as Australia and Tinian island, the Reuters news agency reported. The Air Force also developed the Rapid Airfield Damage Recovery program to reopen runways quickly after an attack.
Distributing forces is particularly effective given the large number of aircraft and other assets based in the region, Steven Rudder, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and former commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, told VOA.
U.S. bases and those of its Allies and Partners are imperative to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, analysts say. For instance, the Japanese and U.S. bases spread across the length of the Japanese archipelago provide strength along the most important segment of the first island chain that runs roughly from Indonesia northeast to Japan and encompasses the East China and South China seas.
The bases are fortresses of regional stability that effectively control all air and maritime corridors between Taiwan in the southwest to Russia in the northeast and envelop most of the Chinese coastline and the Korean Peninsula, Shawn D. Harding, a nonresident scholar at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA think tank, noted in a July 2024 essay.
“Simply put, a strategy of deterrence by denial would be impossible without the effective control and use of these bases by Japanese and U.S. forces acting together to safeguard their mutual security interests,” Harding wrote.