Resilience under fire: how US’s WWII airfield upgrades back Taiwan

(Rowan Allport – ASPI The Strategist) In World War II, the United States built a western Pacific airfield here, another there, and more elsewhere, each intended to bring more Japanese targets into range. Now the abundance of old bases is becoming a resource for resilience: several are being brought back into service as places to disperse aircraft and to maintain operations even as other airfields are knocked out. While major exercises using these facilities are not explicit rehearsals for such a war, they closely align with the US’s projected operational requirements. They reflect an effort to ensure that, in the event of a Taiwan crisis or another regional emergency bringing Washington and Beijing into conflict, the US and its allies can move forces into the theatre, fight as a coalition and sustain operations even under conditions of contested access and degraded infrastructure. This underlying idea is intended not to guarantee a short war, but to shape an adversary’s calculations by reducing its confidence that it can decisively accomplish its goals. – Resilience under fire: how US’s WWII airfield upgrades back Taiwan | The Strategist