Scatter and Survive: Inside a U.S. Military Shift to Deny China ‘Big, Juicy’ Targets

The remote Pacific airfield used to launch the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II is being revived with a different foe in mind: China.

Runways emerging from the encroaching jungles on the tiny island of Tinian, a U.S. territory, are part of a sweeping shift in how America’s military would respond to a possible conflict in Asia.

Instead of relying on a few large air bases, the U.S. would disperse its warplanes to make them less vulnerable to China’s enormous arsenal of missiles. That means identifying, upgrading and reviving airstrips across the Indo-Pacific that could be pressed into service.

The U.S. Air Force calls this effort Agile Combat Employment, or ACE, and the rebuilding on Tinian is a key piece of that.

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“Having American forces operating in smaller units in more locations reduces the likelihood that China can successfully launch a massive first strike,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank. “It will hopefully increase doubts in the minds” of the Chinese Communist Party that it can quickly and easily win a war, she said.

Read the full article and more on The Wall Street Journal.