The impressive sordi was part of a
powerful american response to china's
month-long maritime occupation of a
resource-rich reef inside the
philippines exclusive economic
zone. American and philippine ships and
planes surged into the south china sea
as a warning to the roughly 220 chinese
militia boats anchored off whitson reef
200 miles west of the philippines. The u.s state department made it clear
the use of force was on the table.
"Beijing blinked and withdrew its boats, china realized that its continued
presence was simply going to strengthen
the resistance," said Jerry Hendricks a
retired u.s navy officer and author of
to provide and maintain a navy.
But the american deployments belied the
fragility of u.s air power in the
western pacific. The four F-16s, each packing six
air-to-air missiles, were a credible
aerial force. But those fighters homebase is really
really far away from taiwan and the
south china sea. It's possible the F-16 staged from the
kadena airbase in japan's okinawa
prefecture, just 500 miles from the
southern tip of taiwan.
It's also possible the F-16s flew the
entire 1,800 miles from misawa to the
theodore roosevelt carrier strike group. In any event dragging those four
fighters to the south china sea's hot
zone required four air force KC-135 tankers, each of which had its
radio transponder on and thus was
visible on public plane tracking
websites.
One tanker per fighter, after all an armed F-16 normally can fly no farther than
400 miles without mid-air refuelling. Leaving aside the two squadrons of F-15s
with the 18th wing at cadenna, the two F-16 units belonging to the 35th fighter
wing at misawa are some of the closest USAF forces to taiwan and the south
china sea. If the 13th and 14th fighter squadrons
need a tanker per F-16 to play any
meaningful role in fighting around
taiwan, imagine how many tankers a much
larger american force would require.
The chinese people's liberation army air
force quickly can mobilize hundreds of
modern fighters for an attack on taiwan. If the u.s air force deployed an equal
number of fighters to its bases in the
western pacific, Cadena and Misawa, among
them, the service might also have to
deploy every tanker in its inventory
that isn't in deep maintenance or busy
with crew training hundreds in all.
The us military has more and more modern
warplanes than the pla does. But the chinese military has a
geographic advantage. Beijing maintains
scores of major bases just a few hundred
miles from taiwan. The united states by contrast counts on
just a handful of bases and none is
closer than 500 miles from the likeliest
chinese landing zone in southern taiwan.
That's one reason that air force
officials reportedly aren't assuming the
services F-35 stealth fighters will play
a major role in a war over taiwan. It's also a reason the navy is committed
to its thousand-foot super careers such
as Roosevelt as well as assault ships
such as makkin island with their
contingents of u.s marine corps F-35s. The carriers can sail directly into the
south china sea and launch waves of
fighters. Yes, they'd be vulnerable to attack by
chinese rockets, bombers and submarines, but at least they'd be in the fight.
