TheAltWorld USAF Sending F-35s to Okinawa for Future Fight With China — Former US Marine
The US military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa has long been controversial, with servicemen escaping punishment for numerous crimes. Geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic said the Pentagon was ramping up its presence there as it saw the window of opportunity to contain China was closing.
US stealth fighters have been deployed to a Japanese air base in preparation for conflict with China, says a former US Marine.
A fresh batch of US Air Force (USAF) F-35 stealth strike fighters arrived at Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa early this week, to replace ageing F-15 interceptors based there.
Geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic told Sputnik that Kadena was now the central US air base in both Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, and serves as a staging post for US marines deployed to smaller bases around the island. The USAF Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) command, Navy, Marine Corps and US Army have major units stationed there, with a large force of combat aircraft and aerial refuelling tankers.
“It is a hub from which many spokes radiate in terms of US efforts to encircle and contain China militarily,” Berletic explained. “Almost all contingencies in terms of an armed US conflict with China depend on US forces stationed in Japan,” due to the great distance between the mainland US and the area it is trying to dominate.”
The first airfield at Kadena was built in early 1945 for the Imperial Japanese Air Air Force in early 1945, originally with a runway of crushed coral. It was used by the USAF for some air raids on the home islands in the final months of WWII.
The US military presence since the island was invaded and occupied in 1945 has long been unpopular with ordinary Okinawans, a people with a distinct cultural identity from other Japanese.
Servicemen stationed there have committed numerous rapes and murders over the years, often with impunity as they are not subject to the jurisdiction of Japanese courts.
The stationing of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor vertical take-off aircraft at bases near urban areas has also sparked protests by locals after the type suffered frequent crashes.
The F-35 has also been plagued with gremlins during its lengthy entry into service, with several aircraft lost or damaged and the entire fleet grounded on more than one occasion. The fighter is also the most expensive aircraft ever to enter military service, when lifetime service and upgrade costs are taken into account.
The analyst said the arrival of the F-35s was part of an ongoing US upgrade of its forces at Kadena, where F-16 air-superiority fighters had already been replaced with fifth-generation F-22s.
“The US deploying warplanes thousands of miles from its own shores, on foreign soil, signifies Washington’s commitment toward pursuing its policy of encircling and containing China in the Asia-Pacific,” Berletic stressed.
The former US serviceman said Washington was taking the risk of escalating tensions in the region as it sees the “window of opportunity” closing for its “containment policy” against China.
“China continues to rise despite full-spectrum attempts to militarily encircle, diplomatically isolate, and economically strangle the nation,” Berletic said. “Washington realizes that once China fully surpasses the United States, the process will be irreversible. Many analysts believe the window of opportunity has already long-since closed.”
Okinawa lies some 350 miles south-west of the Japanese home islands, and 400 miles east of the breakaway Chinese province of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. It is also 800 miles south of North Korea, and nearly 1,200 miles from the Russian far-eastern port of Vladivostock.
By contrast, the Taiwan Strait is less than 100 miles wide at its narrowest point near the Island’s capital city Taipei. That gives China an advantage in any US-provoked proxy conflict over the its sovereignty.
“Because any potential conflict the US fights with China will be along or relatively close to Chinese shores, China will also benefit logistically in terms of sustaining combat power while the US is required to fly long sorties from its bases in Japan and must resupply,” Berletic said.
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