Power Players. THE Romanov czars extended

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1 The interests of several strong nations now intersect in East Asia. The most flexible forces that defend this increasingly important region are PACAF's five forward-deployed fighter wings. BY JOHN T. CORRELL EDITOR IN CHIEF PACAF is charged with defending an area that covers everything from Tierra del Fuego to the Kurils and from Australia nearly to Alaska. With Soviet interest and influence growing in that area, the job is getting tougher. Realistic training exercises like Cope Thunder (far right) ensure readiness to meet any threat. Gen. Jack I. Gregory (right) is the man responsible for seeing that PACAF can meet the challenge. Power Players THE Romanov czars extended their rule eastward to the Pacific Ocean more than 300 years ago. Russian explorers went on to claim Alaska and establish settlements as far south as California, but Imperial Russia was never a real power in Pacific affairs. Neither, until recently, was its revolutionary successor state, the Soviet Union. As late as the 1950s, the Soviet military presence in the Far East consisted of coastal and home defense forces. These units, typically undermanned and equipped with hand-me-down weapon systems, were incapable of power projection. It was the Sino-Soviet rift of the 1960s that finally triggered change in a big way. Moscow reacted by building up its forces in East Asia to secure its borders against its former clients and allies, the Red Chinese. Once the buildup was under way, though, it kept rolling relentlessly on, and there is still no sign of a letup. Today, the USSR stations about a third of its military forces in Asia. The Soviet Far East TVD (theater of military operations) commands fifty-seven divisions up from twenty in the mid-1960s-15,000 tanks, 1,300 tactical aircraft, and a major naval force. These units have top-of-the-line equipment. A substantial share of this force is pinned down by defensive duty along the Chinese border, but there is plenty left over for the Kremlin to pursue its firm intention of making Soviet influence felt in the Pacific. Accordingly, air and sea elements of the Far East TVD operate routinely on missions that reach far out into the big ocean. "The Soviets are also paying more attention to the Pacific island nations," says Gen. Jack I. Gregory, Commander in Chief of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). "They can't exert themselves in the Pacific economically, so they do it with military force." In a July 1986 speech at Vladivostok, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev declared that "our interests in Asia and the Pacific are no less important than in Europe." Gorbachev may have been laying it on a bit thick, since Europe is still the top priority in Soviet military thinking, but there is 60 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 1987

2 USAF photo by MSgt Ken Hammo n d U SAF photo by TSgt Da on the Rim of Asia no doubt that Asia has assumed a higher importance than it once did in Soviet eyes. Where Power Intersects Concurrent with the Soviet military buildup, other significant changes were taking place in the Pacific scheme of things. Japan arose from wartime devastation to make itself the world's second-ranking economic power. The stature of South Korea, a poor nation just twenty-five years ago, increased as well. Its economy, which grew at a rate of 12.5 percent in 1986, is currently developing more rapidly than any other in the world. The South Koreans are doubling their real incomes every eleven years, the Japanese every nine. Asia has moved resoundingly into the mainstream of international commerce. US trade, in particular, has expanded steadily in the Asia- Pacific region. Last year, Japan displaced Canada as the number-one US trading partner. The oil tankers that steam through Asian waters add another dimension to regional importance, as do raw materials AIR FORCE Magazine / November 1987 from the Southwest Pacific, many of which are used in the production of aircraft engines and aerospace components. The United States is allied formally with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia and has informal arrangements with several more Asian nations. On the other side are Vietnam and North Korea, rated respectively as having the fourth and sixth largest military forces in the world. Vietnam moved into the Soviet camp at the end of the Southeast Asia war, but that was offset when the US made a peace of sorts with mainland China, which it had previously regarded as the foremost military threat in Asia. In a category by itself is Taiwan, cut adrift by the United States but pumping along with a $75 billion GNP and 424,000 men under arms. Taken together, these events have transformed the Asia-Pacific rim into a region where the interests of an extraordinary number of strong nations intersect. Matters are complicated still further by a lack of political cohesion. Unlike NATO Eu- rope, where allies work in a combined command structure, the defense of the Pacific must be held together by a network of bilateral American treaties and agreements. This adds to the responsibility of US Pacific Command, which not only provides military forces but is also the only real means by which US allies who aren't allied with each other can coordinate their efforts. Pacific Command itself is the single strongest element in the allied lineup. US forces under the control of the CINCPACOM, Adm. Ronald J. Hays, include two Army divisions, a Marine amphibious force, and the Pacific Fleet, to which about half of the US Navy's strength is assigned. The fastest reacting and most flexible warfighting assets in PACOM, however, are the five tactical fighter wings of Pacific Air Forces. All are stationed well forward on the Asia-Pacific rim, two wings each in Japan and Korea and the fifth one in the Philippines. Two-Part Strategy Flexibility and the long reach of 61

3 airpower work in both directions, of course, and PACAF is much concerned about the newfound capability of Soviet Far East air forces to project power, disrupt sea lanes of communication, and threaten allied territory. On practice and training missions, these forces simulate attack profiles against Japanese bases and other targets as distant as Guam. "We see a Soviet peacetime strategy in which they are exerting themselves farther and farther out into the Pacific," PACAF's General Gregory says. "We see longer-range aircraft and larger ships that keep enabling them to project forward." Hand in hand with this military power projection, Soviet emissaries are courting island states in the South Pacific to seek fishing treaties, ship repair rights, and other concessions. "The Soviets plan to fight without a logistics tail," General Gregory says. "They want to be self-sustaining when they project forward, and they need warm water port facilities." The Soviets already have one superb warm water port at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. They have improved facilities there steadily and appear to be settling in permanently. Soviet warships work effectively from Cam Ranh, as do Soviet bombers, which are able to operate beyond the Philippines without refueling. Virtually all of the Soviet firstline aircraft are active in the Far East. That includes MiG-31 and Su-27 interceptors and more than 200 Su-24 Fencer fighter-bombers. Long-range power projection is provided by G and H models of the Tu-142 Bear bomber. "In the event of hostilities, we believe Moscow intends to protect the approaches to [its] homeland by controlling the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk and the area off the Kamchatka peninsula while carrying the battle well out into the open ocean," General Gregory says. "This would allow safe haven for sea-launched ballistic missile submarines close to shore and assure access to the open ocean for the rest of the fleet." Meanwhile, Pacific Command has peacetime and wartime strategies of its own. The "peacetime" part of the strategy recognizes that security concerns in the Asian community are varied. They range from insurgency in the Philippines and Vietnamese border incursions into Thailand to the classic standoff in Korea and the theater-wide threat of the Soviet Union. In its planning and decisions, PACOM makes a point of remembering that the security problem does not look the same from all points of view. The peacetime strategy also tries to compensate for the absence of a well-defined structure of theater alliances with programs of support, solidarity, and reassurance. The vigorous schedule of international exercises although designed above all to improve combat competence has the side benefit of bringing together airmen from various Pacific nations. As an example of the diversity of the peacetime strategy, a civil engineering team from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, used a twoweek training exercise last February to help citizens of the Cook Islands rebuild two schools and another facility that had been wrecked by Cyclone Sally. PACAF's Posture for War The wartime strategy concentrates on those situations in which US forces might be engaged directly in the fighting. PACOM would count on one or more of US allies to take part in any such conflict, but understands that only the United States is committed to the defense of the entire theater. PACOM also recognizes a global responsibility. "We've had a change of mindset in the Pacific from the days when the focus was exclusively on Korea," General Gregory says. "Today, our focus is broader. For example, how best can you take pressure off Western Europe by applying pressure to the other side?" Furthermore, it is inconceivable that the Soviet Union would enter a shooting war involving the United States in either Europe or Asia without also moving out in the other theater, so PACAF war plans have definite global overtones. PAC AF is small for a combat command and has been since the Vietnam War ended. Its aircrews are impressively trained, however, and they are well mounted for their assigned missions. The command has 300 fighter and attack aircraft. These include F-15s and F-4Es in roughly equal denominations for air superiority, F-16s for ground attack, and hard-shooting A-10s to handle tanks in Korea. With such small numbers, PACAF realizes that if war should come, the command cannot go it The yearly Team Spirit exercise gives PACAF forces the opportunity to work closely with allied nations to perfect joint tactics and operations. This maintenance crew is working on a South Korean F-5E during this year's Team Spirit activities. 62 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 1987

4 alone and would look for a coalition effort from its allies. The command works this doctrine daily in all that it does. "The Air Component Command in Korea is the finest example anywhere in the world of two allies working close together on a daily basis," General Gregory says. "The staff is fully combined between the ROKAF and USAF. The commander is dual-hatted as Commander of Seventh Air Force and of the Air Component Command, and his deputy is also the Commander of the ROKAF Combat Air Command. We also have a close working relationship with the Japanese Air Self- Defense Force. We fully expect a coalition effort among friendly air forces in a crisis in the Pacific." Because of an organizational doctrine that calls for certain assets to be controlled centrally rather than parceled out to theater commands, some forty percent of the Air Force people in the Pacific belong to major commands other than PACAF. Among these forces are SAC's B-52 heavy bombers on Guam and TAC's E-3 AWACS aircraft, which fly out of Okinawa to provide deep-look battle management for US and allied air forces. It is no exaggeration to say that for all of these airmen hung out on the far edge of a very wide ocean, SAC tankers and MAC airlifters constitute a critical lifeline without which no operations would go on for long. PACAF forces themselves have benefited noticeably from continued upgrade and modernization. Misawa AB in Japan has already traded its F-16As for F-16Cs, and a similar conversion is occurring at Kunsan in Korea. The supply of spare parts and wartime stocks is up, and as a result, readiness and sustainability are better, too. Aircrews, who averaged eight sorties each per month in the 1970s, now get to fly fifteen or sixteen. The combat wings will take two more big jumps ahead with deliveries of the Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LAN- TIRN) system and the AIM-120A Advanced Medium-Range Air-to- Air Missile (AMRAAM). Like other combat commanders, General Gregory does not have enough precision-guided, or "smart," munitions to cover all of his high-value targets. The presence of F-16s makes up for some of the gap. "The F-16 bombing platform allows us to do doggone good work without a guided munition," he says. "It gives a better probability of kill with the stockpiles of standard Mark 82 and Mark 84 bombs we have here. If we're going after a very important bridge complex and I need a ninety percent probability of kill, I can get it with a couple of F-4s and guided munitions. It takes a couple of F-16 flights with standard munitions to get the same probability but it may take twice as many F-4s to do it with unguided bombs." An especially keen requirement is for an air-to-surface missile to use in maritime operations. Harpoon missiles can do a good job, but only B-52s carry them. "We need something indigenous to our force, something we can hang on an F-16," General Gregory says. "To reach our targets in some scenarios, we will need to fight through a picket line of ships that are armed with surfaceto-air missiles. We need the capability to put a couple of fighters up front to blow a hole through that defense so the rest of the strike force can get through." Insurgency in the Philippines The diversity of Asia is reflected by the range of concerns among PACAF's three numbered air forces the Thirteenth in the Philippines, the Fifth in Japan, and the newly formed Seventh in Korea. Thirteenth Air Force at Clark is 740 miles east of the Soviet stronghold at Cam Ranh Bay and is well positioned to defend the southern air and sea lanes. Clark also has the best training ranges in the Pacific. All of the PACAF fighter wings come here for the highly realistic Cope Thunder training program, and so do many of the allied air forces (see "Thunder at Crow Valley," August '87 issue). By virtue of running Cope Thunder, Thirteenth Air Force sees an especially wide cross section of Asian forces. Participation is not limited to formal allies. Liaison is closest, however, with the host Philippine Air Force. The Philippine government has serious internal security problems a series of attempted coups by dissidents in the armed forces as well as continuing insurgency by the New People's Army and is struggling with a $28 billion foreign debt. It does not have much attention to spare for an external military threat that is not already on its doorstep. The priority for the Philippine Air Force is to support the army in counterinsurgency. It emphasizes US forces in the Pacific theater are spread thin. Should a crisis arise, the US would count on help from its allies in the area. Here, a Royal Australian Air Force F-111 stands on the runway at Clark AB, the Philippines, as an F-15 from the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, taxis onto the runway. AIR FORCE Magazine / November

5 helicopters and attack aircraft and fields only a squadron of F-5s for air defense. The future of the US bases at Clark and at Subic Bay is unsettled. Earlier, President Corazon Aquino had declared that the basing agreements would not be renewed when they expire in 1991, but now says she will keep her options open. PACOM is not talking publicly about any possible alternatives to Clark and Subic Bay. "The upcoming negotiations to renew the bases agreement may be tougher than they have been in the past, but a majority of Filipinos recognize the benefits of these bases to their own interests and endorse our presence," Admiral Hays said in testimony to Congress in April. Outside speculation about rebasing has suggested Guam as a possibility. But even if Guam could accommodate Thirteenth Air Force's fighters, it is 1,500 time-consuming, gas-eating miles farther from the Asian landmass than Clark is. PACAF already has an aerial refueling shortage, so such a move would most likely be ruled out because of the excessive demands it would put on tanker support. If Thirteenth Air Force left the Philippines, that strategically located nation which has very limited capability to defend itself would be vulnerable to Soviet designs and expansionism. This consideration will surely weigh heavier on Philippine thinking if the activity out of Cam Ranh Bay persists at the present level or accelerates. Confrontation in Korea In Korea, the situation is different in almost every respect from that in the Philippines. US and South Korean forces operate on a wartime alert footing and under combined command against a clearly perceived external threat. North Korea, bellicose and unpredictable, keeps sixty-five percent of its armed forces mobilized along the demilitarized zone. It strips a weak economy to spend more than twenty percent of its GNP on its armed forces, and it could throw 800,000 troops into the invasion it threatens periodically to launch. The North Koreans have been acquiring MiG-23 fighters from the Soviet Union since 1985 and now have forty-six of them. They have also added considerably to their helicopter fleet, which they would use to transport their large commando force across the border. Cooperation with the Soviet Union is increasing, too. The North Koreans and the Soviets have exchanged visits by aircraft and naval vessels and in 1986 held an unprecedented combined naval exercise off the Korean coast. While the South Koreans are outnumbered by their northern adversary, their forces are professional, well-trained, and motivated. The Republic of Korea spends between 5.5 and six percent of its GNP or about thirty percent of its national budget on defense. Its air force consists largely of F-5s and F-4s, but the Koreans have already taken delivery on eighteen F-16s out of a total of thirty-six they are buying from the US. PACAF's Seventh Air Force is equipped with F-4s for air defense and F-16s for interdiction. It maintains a forward operating location at Osan for F-15 fighters that could deploy quickly from Okinawa. Its northernmost element is a squadron of A-10s at Suwon to provide close air support for Korean ground forces and the US Eighth Army. "A major responsibility of that squadron is a twenty-five-by-fiftymile rectangular sector north of the city of Seoul," General Gregory says. "Our national command authorities US and Korean have agreed that we cannot allow Seoul to fall if the North Koreans invade. The key thing I ask of those A-10 aircrews is that they know that stretch like the backs of their hands. That's where they train and practice. The A-10 is well suited with its gun to slow the armor moving from the north. We need A-10s in that area as long as we have A-10s in the Air Force inventory. It doesn't have to go very far. As soon as it gets airborne, it's in the battle area." The free world's biggest military exercise, Team Spirit, is held annually in Korea. It features massive airlift of troops and cargo, tactical forces deploying from the United States, and combat-oriented practice that includes fighter operations from specially prepared highway strips. US units from Korea also go else- where in the Pacific for exercises. In a selection that shows a nice historical touch, PACAF has for the past two years sent F-16s from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Kunsan to participate in the Cobra Gold exercise in Thailand. During the Vietnam War, the 8th Wing flew with distinction out of Ubon, Thailand, under the likes of Robin Olds and Chappie James. Pressures on Japan The situation in Korea is basically an intensified version of the same confrontation that has existed for thirty years. By contrast, the Japanese are searching with some anguish for new defense policies to meet Soviet pressures that were not present in Asia until recently. Soviet activity near Japan now averages, by Japanese count, more than 500 naval movements and about 350 military aircraft incursions annually, scrambling the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force some 850 times a year. The Soviets have also beefed up their forces in the Kuril Islands, which they seized from Japan in In a report released in August, the Japanese Defense Agency said that Japan should bolster its military capabilities promptly in response to the growing Soviet threat. That proposal is sure to be controversial, both in Japan and in other Asian nations, where Japanese rearmament is still viewed with suspicion. Following World War!!, the Japanese quickly rebuilt their destroyed cities and created a much stronger economy than anything that had existed previously. The psychological recovery from the war, however, brought a sweeping change in Japanese attitudes toward military force. Japan had never before lost a war, and its traditions held that surrender was dishonorable. Even after atomic bombs had fallen on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the decision to capitulate was difficult. Japan's ultimate acceptance of the inevitable and its unique experience of nuclear destruction led to a deeply rooted pacifism that still persists. Japan's limited rearmament met with considerable domestic opposition, and current policy continues to restrict the nation's role in armed conflict. "Japan will initiate defen- 66 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 1987

6 U SAF photo by SSgt. Lynn B. Swat-lord As evidence of their commitment to aiding in the defense of the area, Japan was one of two countries outside the US to buy F-15s, and the Japanese are the only people building Eagles under license. Shown here is then-tsgt. Ronald van Breemen painting the rising sun emblem on one of the F-15s Japan bought before that country started building its own. sive operations only when she herself is attacked by a foreign power or powers, and even then the scope of military operations and the level of the defense forces to be mobilized will be kept to the minimum required for self-defense," the Japanese Defense Agency says. Nuclear weapons are proscribed. This year, Japan's defense budget broke slightly above one percent of GNP, a ceiling the Japanese had imposed on themselves since Total defense spending has increased from $12 billion in 1983 to $22.5 billion in the current budget. The defense program for will see growth in the naval force and a transition by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force to a strengthened interceptor fleet of F-15Js--replacing F-104Jsand F-4EJs. Japan also plans to acquire a replacement for its Mitsubishi F-1 s in air defense and ground attack. It is currently evaluating candidate US fighters as well as a new, indigenously developed aircraft for this role. Japan agreed some time ago to work toward a capability to defend sea lanes and airspace out to a distance of 1,000 miles. Japan's defense program will give it one of the more impressive military forces around, but its defense burden is still relatively light for a ranking world power. The United States spends 6.9 percent of GNP on defense, and the expenditures of the major NATO nations range be- tween 3.3 and 5.2 percent. There is a widespread perception in the United States that Japan enjoys the benefits of global protection without shouldering its fair share of either the cost or the responsibility. This, along with tension over import policies and trade, casts a shadow on relations between the US and one of its most important allies in Asia. One consequence of the Soviet buildup in the Kurils is that Fifth Air Force now has two squadrons of F-16Cs at Misawa AB on the tip of Honshu. For fifteen years prior to this deployment, no American fighters had been based on the Japanese main island. The JASDF keeps a squadron of F-is at Misawa as well. Japan regards the Kuril Islands- Kunashiri, Etorofu, and Shikotanas an integral part of its territory. The Soviets there, whose troop strength is estimated to be the equivalent of a division, are equipped with Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters and 130-mm cannon. About forty MiG-23 Floggers are deployed at Tennei Airfield on Etorofu. Kadena AB on Okinawa is a central location for a number of special US capabilities. In addition to PACAF's F-15s and RF-4s stationed there, tankers, RC-135 aircraft, and the E-3 AWACS operate from Kadena. PACAF is in the process of decentralizing the functions of its intermediate maintenance center at Kadena. Between now and 1990, much of the capability will be dispersed to operating locations of the fighting wings to speed up component repair, especially turnaround time of electronic line-replaceable units. The Flying Is Good Aircrews in the Pacific say that "the flying is good here" and obviously take satisfaction from their assignments. Pilot retention rate for the command was eighty-nine percent last year and eighty-four percent this year, far better than the average for other tactical air forces or the US Air Force overall. PACAF's goal is to have a ratio of at least sixty experienced pilots to each forty new guys in its aircrew force. The mix is currently running better than that. One related problem, however, is that Korea is still a short-tour area. Aircrews barely have time to settle well into their assignments before their year on station is up. General Gregory says that it would improve operations in Korea a great deal if facilities and housing were available to allow conversion of about 600 manpower spaces in Seventh Air Force to a long-tour basis. When aircrews say the flying is good, according to General Gregory they mean not only that they are getting an adequate amount of cockpit time but also that the missions themselves are meaningful. There isn't much flying around the flagpole in the Pacific. Each year, PACAF forces participate in about sixty realistic exercises, more than ninety percent of which are conducted jointly with other US services and sixty percent of which involve allied airmen. The combined force that the US and its allies can field in the Pacific is modest in numbers but improving in quality. Soviet muscle-flexing in the region has, among other things, helped focus the concentration of several nations on their security requirements. The rising threat may also have contributed to a more vigorous spirit of cooperation among some of the major allies. All signs are that the power struggle on the Asian rim will intensify still further and that new confrontations lie ahead in this increasingly important part of the world. AIR FORCE Magazine / November