“We are accustomed to speak of naval and military strategy as though they were distinct branches of knowledge, which had no common ground. It is a theory of war [that] brings out their intimate relation. It reveals that embracing them both is a larger strategy [that] regards the fleet and army as one weapon, which coordinates their action, and indicates the lines on which each must move to realize the full power of both.”
– Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy
Defense thinkers are rediscovering the utility of sea denial capabilities. In October 2014, Congressmen Randy Forbes sent General Ray Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, a letter calling on the Army to examine developing land-based anti-ship missiles in line with a RAND study. For the last two years, military officers in the Marine Corps Advanced Studies Program in Quantico, Virginia similarly studied integrating distributed land and sea forces optimized to deny air and sea lines of communication. Combined these efforts signal an emerging interest in distributed maritime operations, the use of small littoral detachments to threaten enemy airplanes and ships.
Operational Art in the Rebalance
A growing number of strategists call for using multi-domain platforms to counter growing adversary, read Chinese, naval capabilities. The concepts are a departure from visions of naval warfare prefacing a Mahanian decisive fleet engagement pitting ship against ship. Andrew Krepinevich argues for “archipelagic defense” in which land-based units conduct maritime interdiction and sea denial in the first island chain. Armed with anti-ship cruise missiles and air defense assets as well as mines and unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drones, these units would “deter by denial,” and, according to James R. Holmes, change the cost calculation of any future Chinese territory grabs.
Krepinevich’s concept builds on earlier work by Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) fellow Jim Thomas. In 2012, Jim Thomas argued for land-based missiles acting in a cross-domain denial approach to deter Chinese air and naval forces. These CSBA studies parallel scholarship by James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara proposing a maritime cost-imposing strategy modeled on the Duke of Wellington’s 1807-14 campaign in Portugal and Spain. They envisioned ground based anti-ship missiles like the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force truck-launched Type 88 conducting “shoot and scoot” missions from dispersed island chains.
Multiple service concepts imagine future war and crisis management conducted by dispersed systems optimized for similar cost-imposing campaigns. The U.S. Marine Corps is experimenting with a new concept that envisions employing F-35Bs to “activate a shifting network of expeditionary airfields, tactical landing zones and forward arming and refueling points with the intent of complicating enemy targeting solutions.” The U.S. Navy is exploring a new concept, “distributed lethality,” that envisions dispersed, hunter-killer surface action groups designed to “provide persistent presence that can influence and control events at sea and in the littorals, applying the right capability to the right target for the joint-force commander.” The U.S. Air Force is conducting proof-of-concept exercises to test “Rapid Raptor” – deploying detachments of F-22s with all support personnel and material on C-17s to friendly air bases on short notice.
All of these initiatives arise from a military problem outlined in the Joint Operational Access Concept: how can U.S. forces assure access in the face of proliferating anti-access/area denial threats? Publicly released in 2010, AirSea Battle calls for a blinding campaign and series of deep strikes that disable adversary command systems and intelligence assets in order to disrupt their anti-access/area denial network. Opposite this approach, offshore control envisions disrupting sea-lanes and threatening an adversary’s economy rather than attempting direct military action. The concept is reminiscent of “commerce raiding,” a form of naval warfare that targets enemy logistics and commercial activity either through military action or a blockade. Where AirSea Battle seeks a decisive, opening attack that disrupts Chinese forces, offshore control is reminiscent of Pericles’ strategy during the Peloponnesian War. Just as Athens’ walls denied the Spartans battle while coastal raids sought a Helot slave uprising, offshore control enthusiasts like T.X. Hammes of War on the Rocks are betting the economic strain of a blockade will cause domestic unrest in China that forces Beijing to back down in a crisis.
Distributed maritime operations take a different point of departure. Rather than attack mainland command and intelligence assets in a crisis with China (e.g., AirSea Battle) or threaten commercial shipping lanes (e.g., offshore control), small, dispersed land and sea detachments threaten the ability of Chinese forces to concentrate from within their anti-access/area denial umbrella. These forces deny Chinese freedom of movement along key sea and air lines communication. Distributed forces change the adversary’s cost calculus and buy time for flexible deterrence options and assembling a joint task force.
There are important, often unrecognized, historical precedents to this concept. Julian Corbett’s 1911 classic, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, proposed a “fleet in being” that would tie down the enemy while the larger fleet assembled for a decisive naval battle. This temporary force denied an enemy from achieving local superiority. In fact, much of Corbett’s focus was on the difficulty of sea control and the fluidity of offensive and defensive actions in the maritime contest to secure sea lines of communication to transit land forces.
The idea of integrating land forces into the “fleet in being” also has roots in the evolution of American maritime strategy. Starting in the 1860s, the U.S. Navy became interested in coaling stations and bases in the Pacific. These expeditionary nodes became a focal point of American strategy after the Spanish-American War and the publication of Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-I783. In 1900, the United States Navy established a general staff-like body, the General Board, whose analysis of the tyranny of distance and need for “advanced bases” formed the core of War Plan Orange, an early 20th century U.S. military plan for countering Japanese attacks in the Pacific.
As part of War Plan Orange, the Marine Corps developed capabilities to seize “advanced bases” in the Pacific and defend them until a larger fleet could steam to the area. In the 1914 Culebra exercise, an Advanced Base Force Brigade deployed and successfully established a coastal defense network that included coastal artillery, naval mines, communications, search lights, and hardened fighting positions designed to deny a port to raids. The concept proposed a “fleet in being,” a land force establishing localized strong points that disrupted adversary sea lines of communication while the larger fleet mobilized.
Other examples of integrating land and sea forces to deny enemy freedom of movement abound. In 1939, the British Royal Marines established the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organization to secure advanced bases. The organization, like the Advanced Base Force, employed coastal defense artillery and anti-aircraft batteries. For decades, multiple Scandinavian countries have deployed “coastal rangers” designed to take advantage of archipelagos in the Baltic Sea. These teams are optimized for counter attack and terrain denial, equipped with sufficient anti-air, anti-ship, and fire support to increase the cost of any Russian amphibious activity. A growing number of U.S. military officers, such as Major Chris Richardella, see this rich history of land and sea integration as the key to future crisis response in the Asia-Pacific.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviets both developed concepts for integrating land and sea forces in their maritime strategies. In Sea Power of the State, Soviet Admiral Gorshkov called for joint army and navy operations, arguing that historically ground forces able to capture coastal areas directly contribute to the command of the sea. Soviet thinkers envisioned positioning expeditionary bases, ISR assets, and anti-ship and anti-air platforms in the Arctic as a means of preventing NATO surface ships and submarines from threatening their northern lines of communication. In the extreme, the approach called for the seizure of Norway and using its coastline to control the sea-lanes between the Arctic and Atlantic.
NATO planners also saw the importance of denying Soviet maritime control of critical sea-lanes through a mix of land and sea based forces. In a 1985 piece entitled “The Amphibious Warfare Strategy,” General P.X. Kelley and Major Hugh O’Donnnell argued:
NATO’s Northern Flank will be the scene of tense drama, in which amphibious forces can play a key role. As allied naval forces fight for control of the Norwegian Sea, they will be supported by the air component of MAGTFs ashore. As the Soviet invader is worn down, opportunities will develop for amphibious assaults along the Norwegian coast to his rear, to reclaim any airfields and ports that may have been lost in the war’s initial days.
Like these earlier concepts, integrating land and naval forces as a “fleet in being” denying adversary sea control is at the core of the emerging distributed maritime operations paradigm. Similar to earlier experiments with Advanced Base defense and using amphibious forces to deny adversary key lines of communication, the new concept envisions undermining anti-access/area denial threats from within. In a future standoff with a near peer competitor, the United States will be the away team faced with a significant anti-access/area denial threat. The goal of any anti-access/area denial umbrella, from Chinese capabilities in the Western Pacific to Russian assets in the Baltic, will be to deny U.S. power projection in order to gain and maintain freedom of movement.
Attacking the systems that generate this anti-access/area denial umbrella is an attritional approach. As long as the enemy is operating on interior lines and has a large number of anti-ship and anti-air systems or cost advantages relative to U.S. forces, the approach has declining returns. Alternatively, using low-signature, low-risk platforms to deny enemy freedom of movement attacks the adversary’s plan. It presents the enemy with a compounding dilemma and by denying key sea lines of communication, enables crisis response options while a larger joint force aggregates.
Instead of massive aircraft carriers with 5,000 sailors onboard, imagine an array of anti-ship and anti-air platforms distributed by helicopters across an island chain during a crisis. These forces, like the earlier Advanced Base Defense forces, would increase the cost of the enemy advance while a larger task force assembled. They would connect with a larger expeditionary network linking multiple classes of ships with expeditionary airfields. They would leverage fleet-based intelligence assets via Link 16. While the dispersed teams would be easily overwhelmed by a large attack, their mobility allows them to disperse. They substitute speed and mobility for mass. Furthermore, risking a ten-person detachment is a better gamble than 500 sailors on a destroyer or 5,000 on an aircraft carrier.
This idea, developed by U.S. military officers participating in the Marine Corps’ Advanced Studies Program in 2013 and early 2014, is striking similar to concepts espoused by Krepinevich, Holmes, Ishihara, and Thomas. What makes the Advanced Studies students’ work unique is that they thought through the range of enabling concepts and capabilities required to make distributed maritime operations a reality.
Similar to the “Pacific Pathways” idea, the Advanced Studies Program students proposed an “engagement pull” concept. In order for dispersed land units to conduct “reconnaissance pull,” creating gaps for friendly forces to exploit through denying enemy freedom movement, they require access to and understanding of local terrain. To find the right locations and facilitate the rapid deployment of expeditionary anti-ship and anti-air detachments, forward deployed area officers would prep the battlefield through establishing close working relationships with partner nations. In the event of a crisis, they transition to receipt, staging and onward integration cells coordinating local deployments. Furthermore, engagement pull can be a multiple domain activity. U.S. forces could field “cyber engagement teams” that hold the adversary’s command networks at risk while bolstering partner cyber defenses.
The critical capability is a credible suite of lightweight, airmobile platforms that threaten enemy sea and air lines of communication. Instead of using long-range fires and cyber offensive actions to paralyze enemy command and intelligence systems as envisioned by AirSea Battle, small expeditionary detachments armed with anti-ship and air-air systems would deploy within the anti-access/area denial umbrella. For example, two small detachments could deploy by helicopter from littoral combat ships armed with modified SPIKE-ER missiles similar to the Finnish Coastal Jaegers and man-portable anti-air systems. A larger detachment could then deploy with a MQ-8 Fire Scout and wheeled vehicles capable of conducting air and sea denial. Distributing these area denial detachments in the early stages of a crisis threatens an adversary’s freedom of movement without significantly escalating the situation.
To aggregate small teams ranging from cyber experts to small crews operating dispersed air and sea denial weapons alongside unmanned surveillance systems, the Advanced Studies students proposed a new intra-theater movement concept: “network mobility.” Scalable and flexible expeditionary air bases would provide network attachment points enabling the commander to flow assets across the theater using air and sea based assets. Network mobility requires forces significantly lighter and smaller than distributed sites currently under consideration. It also requires investing in a wider range of connectors to enable forces to flow along the network. Aviation capable Navy surface platforms such as the Littoral Combat Ship and Joint High Speed Vessel could be modified to launch air and sea denial teams just as the United States modified destroyers in the Pacific during World War II to launch Marine Raiders. Distributed forces only work if there are multiple connectors forming a flexible network.
While all of the capabilities required to field small teams that invert anti-access/area denial problem are currently available, proper command relationships and risk culture limit their realization. First, who is in charge? Are distributed teams operating anti-air and anti-ship assets commanded by the Fleet, by a forward deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit, or by over-the-horizon elements like the Marine Expeditionary Brigade? The inherently joint character of the concept compounds the command dilemma.
Second, a culture of low risk tolerance among senior officers will complicate experimenting with fielding small detachments. Military bureaucracy is historically risk-averse. That trend has only increased since 2003. Over the last decade, U.S. forces sacrificed mobility for increased armor protection in the counter-IED fight. Lost was a simple idea: mobility, deception, and surprise are the best forms of force protection. To realize distributed maritime operations will require changing that risk culture. Furthermore, military education will need to offer outlets for more creative and adaptive maritime exercises oriented around problem-solving and competitive risk-taking (i.e., increasing the enemy’s risk relative to your own).
Neither challenge is insurmountable. The concepts and capabilities required to implement distributed maritime operations are within reach despite looming budget cuts and force structure reductions. It is neither an expensive nor an especially novel adaptation. The central idea animating distributed maritime operations seems to be enduring. The logic emerges whenever a great power confronts an anti-access/area denial threat in multiple domains. The United States is currently facing that challenge in multiple theaters. Building a credible challenge to the anti-access/area denial dilemma should be a military priority. Whether defending a NATO ally in the Baltic or managing future crises with China in the Western Pacific, the U.S. military will need a credible, conventional deterrent.
Benjamin M. Jensen, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Marine Corps University, Command and Staff College where he coordinates the Advanced Studies Program. He holds a dual appointment as a Scholar in Residence at American University, School of International Service. Outside of academia he is an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. The opinions expressed in this article are not official U.S. government policy. This work builds on insights from participants in the 2013/2014 Advanced Studies Program including LCDR Craig Allen (USCG), Dr. Anne-Louis Antonoff, MAJ Chris Carter (USA), MAJ Mary Cassidy (USA), Maj Duane Durant (USMC), Maj Jon Erskine (USMC),CDR Russell Evans (USN), MAJ Stephen Irving (USA), MAJ Stephen Lamb (USAF), Maj Matt Lesnowics (USMC), Maj Michael Murray (USMC), Maj Mike Ogden (USMC), MAJ Julius Romasanta (USAF), LtCol Brian Ross (USMC), Maj William Smith (USMC), Maj Brandon Sullivan (USMC) and LCDR Geoff Townsend (USN).
Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery
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An interesting paper with some strategically valid thoughts. If the U.S. plans, in conjunction with other Nations in the region, to halt and contain the advance of China’s sphere of influence and area of control it needs to act pragmatically, minimize risk, and accept the fact that a strategy of defensive containment is the wisest course of action.
First, the U.S. must recognize that there are operating areas in which the Chinese military has, and will always have, the superior position due as much to the nature of geography. The Northern area of the South China Sea is an area in which this country cannot successfully operationally compete with Chinese land based Air Power and their A2AD capabilities. Common sense dictates that through its actions the U.S. acknowledge that fact and grasp the reality that the Chinese are going to exert their influence and control over the Islands and undersea resources – if any) in that area. We should advise both Vietnam and the Philippines that the U.S. will not become involved militarily against the Chinese in that area and that those Nations need to grasp the reality they are militarily incapable of successfully engaging the Chinese in any contest over control of that area.
It is the same type of common sense Foreign Policy that the U.S. carried out during the Cold War when it correctly decided not to interfere with Soviet Army actions in Hungary and their takeover of Czechoslovakia, did not oppose the Chinese Communist Army’s successful advance and takeover in China, despite requests from France did not militarily contest the Viet Minh’s successful takeover in the Northern part of (then) French Indochina, etc.
Instead, during the Cold War, the U.S. reacted by establishing what (in most areas) were strong lines of defense – backed up by the necessary defensive oriented military forces and weapons systems. The U.S. military was configured accordingly and succeeded in carrying out that defensive mission generally without the need for hostile actions. That is the epitome of military success as the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu once noted.
To contain the Chinese that U.S. needs, in agreement with the smaller Nations in the area, to identify the lines of defense along which it can successfully contain the Chinese. Lines of defense which the Chinese would find themselves playing the role of an aggressor should they attempt to militarily penetrate them.
Those lines of defense would necessarily be defended by all branches of the U.S. military carrying out combined key roles in their defense. For example, the Philippine Island Chain could be defended should the U.S. Army establish the necessary A2AD Battalions and place those weapons and systems in adequate numbers along the West Coast of that Nation, supported (protected) by the necessary number of anti-missile (perhaps Aegis) Systems and the necessary USAF Air Support. Those A2AD anti-ship missile systems would also de facto place the Chinese Navy operating in the South China Sea at risk in the (improbable) event of any conflict in the region. Patrolling U.S. Navy Attack Submarines could protect the Eastern access to the Philippines while Trident Missile Submarines noted as being in the area would secure the area through their effective notification to the Chinese that any attempt to invade the Philippines could quickly result in a Nuclear Conflict.
Largely unknown to the public, during the Cold War the U.S. Navy (primarily using Navy P2V Aircraft) maintained some presence in the Black Sea, thus we could similarly do so by having Destroyer type ships patrol in small numbers in the Northern area of the South China Sea, by implying the U.S. has Submarines in the area (whether we do or not), and by maintaining a much heavier Naval and Air Force presence in the Southern Area of that Sea. An area outside the practical range of Chinese Aircraft and their Shore Based Missile Systems.
This approach is strategically similar to that successfully employed against the Soviets in Europe during the Cold War. Just as the U.S. wisely allowed the Russians to act freely inside their defined geographical sphere of influence – giving that Nation an outlet to enforce their control over the area they deemed their sphere of influence, so must we do so for the Chinese to insure there is no conflict between our Nations.
Of course, this is only part of the geographically based approach to containing the Chinese, which would be possibly (and geographically necessarily) expanded to include Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, etc. It also does not address a strategic approach to contesting Chinese attempts to take control of the Spratly Islands in the Southern area of the South China Sea, etc.
It certainly requires additional investments in the capabilities and size of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Army would need additional budgeted funds to be directed into their forming the necessarily modern type of Coastal Artillery centered around A2AD weapons, Anti-Missile Systems, and Cyber War capabilities. An added Mission Capability and accompanying Force Structure (and personnel far different than those understandably constituting the Infantry forces which (appear to)form the center of Army attention.
If the U.S. is going to contain China and perhaps Russia, it will need to adopt an effective strategic approach, one different in nature than that which we are currently employing; and the DOD is going to have to structure (create) new operational activities in the Army and expand existing force structures and capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.
A good article although I think Corbett’s concept of a “fleet in being” was stretched somewhat to fit the argument. And while we can certainly do more to deny the denied area to the denier (phew!), as Sam Tangredi points out in his book on A2/AD, in practice the denied area is usually denied to the denier as well. Take the old example of coastal forts protecting fleet anchorages: the superior fleet (Corbett again) couldn’t enter the area covered by the fort’s guns, but it was also dificult for the inferior fleet to maneuver in that area as the superio fleet could fire into it without actually entering it. Other area denial technologies (minefields, for example) make it hard for the inferior fleet to manuever as well.
There are a number of faults in this essay, which appears a thinly-veiled attempt to find additional missions (and associated funding) for ground forces (Marines and especially Army) in a rebalanced Pacific military force structure. Archipelagic defense was what General Douglas MacArthur was charged with at the outset of WW2. This concept failed miserably as it is vitally dependent on securing the sea lines of communication between CONUS and forward deployed island locations. There is no guarantee that US forces in the Western Pacific can maintain such communications in the face of a significant PLA offensive. While such a strategy may be cost effective to the US, the PLA possess sufficient force to overwhelm it in short order. The historical land/sea cooperative efforts planned by the US and the UK before WW2 were intended to be conducted along with the advance of a fleet back toward former possessions in the Western Pacific (the Philippines and Hong Kong) that they assumed would be lost in an initial Japanese onslaught. Fleets in being, for that matter, must be in protected, unassailable bases in order to be effective in their mission. They are also largely a pre-airpower idea that cannot be sustained in the missile age.
The only real deterrent to PLA attack in the Western Pacific is a large, well supported Allied naval force that can operate distributively or concentrated as the situation permits. Naval units remain much less targetable than their land-based counterparts on small islands. Marine and special forces units may be of use in raids, but will more likely be employed in the slow Allied slog back into the Western Pacific to retake land masses captured in an initial PLA attack. Ground force units as 21st century coastal defense forces will fare no better than their counterparts did in 1941.
Ground forces should be accumulating and mastering the lessons of the last 15 years so that they can fight both expeditionary and COIN operations in the future. Do not chain them to outdated coastal defense functions that failed in 1941 and will likely fail in future conflict.
An interesting analysis, not complete but with promise as pointed out by the other commenters.
The most interesting conclusion I draw from it is how the discussion of small mobile air and naval/ naval threat teams directly mimics established guerrilla tactics that rely on concealment and surprise more than firepower – essentially high risk low cost units; I would find it very ironic if the US military actually did this because it would be doing to the Chinese what the Iraqis and Afghanis did to them!
The failed logic of this article stems from presuming that the American populace will condone & support U.S. military involvement on the magnitude being suggested. The first question that will be asked, is “What Direct threat is Chinese expansion to our National Security?” As we are currently seeing in Iraq with the ISIS scourge, America is sick & tired of military adventurism, especially in light of failed results & corrupt “Nation Building” practices. Trying to expand our TTPs into basing Anti-missile units, manned expeditionary airfields, etc. in foreign countries, in light of sequestration & an economy in tatters, will be a non-starter. We should first realize that this is NOT our problem & focus our basing & defense efforts on the second island chain, allowing countries in the first island chain to pursue negotiations, both diplomatic & militarily, as sovereign nations…NOT from behind a façade of U.S. protection. Our planning, in the event of military actions, which congress votes for, should be focused on an Unconventional Warfare model (think Wendell Fertig, etc.), adaptable to training/supplying/leading Guerrilla forces from these Island nations in a pro-longed conflict (think WWII duration). By establishing these TTPs now with the island nations occupying the First Island Chain & training, exercising & conducting major operations utilizing possible scenarios, it would not come as an unplanned surprise if & when actual deployment was ever needed. Knowing the terrain…NOT just training areas. Knowing the local populace (patronage families stay in power for what seems eternity). Knowing the language, customs & traditions of an area & insinuating our Special Operations Units (expansion is needed here also) into their community fabric long-term, we would have a major head start in the event that hostilities ever reached the point where U.S. forces were required to become involved…at a much more cost-effective model in terms of both human capital & other resources…
I would argue that there is no failed logic in this article, only a lack of explanation of each of the concepts that were presented.
The second half of your commentary focusing on UW and knowing the OE were exponentially covered in two of the concepts represented in this article. The idea of Engagement Pull was to use a “quid pro quo” type of political and DoD Security Cooperation. Every engagement with a foreign nation should be viewed through a strategic lens, how the actions in that country support existing Op/Con plans, how the existing or developed capabilities of our allies, partners, and yet to be determined relationships could be used to help us deter or position us to defeat adversaries.
Whether is it for access to fly over/through, position a current/future capability/force, or even utilize indigenous forces in support of operations.
The ideas created associated to this article were generated from the premise that we must maximize current capabilities, consider future technology and capabilities. The central idea of Engagement Pull only required a change in how and why we conduct cooperation (expend US $ abroad) and what we get out of it. EP argued that we should be using engagements to create maneuver space. What and how we use that space, to what ends, falls in line with your ideas on UW and SOF usage, as well as exploiting the mandated capturing of COIN/Stability knowledge over the last 15 years of war.
Let’s go ahead and condense what this essay is arguing and get to the logical conclusion: in an era when the destructiveness, range, and precision of fires systems is unparalleled, and where intelligence is capable of detection from distances where it is beyond retaliation or suppression, maneuver systems are highly vulnerable and visible, and our need to reduce risk to these systems has made them unaffordable in the numbers we need to win a conflict. The United States didn’t win World War II because the Sherman tank was better than the German equivalent, the United States won because it built more Shermans than the Wehrmacht could ever hope to destroy. We live in the era of missile wars, and as time goes on missiles will only become more accurate and destructive over longer distances. The nature of missile physics imposes further restrictions, essentially requiring that offensive missiles will always be less expensive and more effective than defensive ones.
Barring some sort of technological revolution in protection assets which renders defensive systems more effective than offensive fires, the next war will be won by the side that shoots first. Needless to say this is a highly unstable situation we find ourselves in.
Ulithi Atoll still has safe anchorage for hundreds of ships: 9.97°N, 139.67°E
The runways for 509th Composite Group’s B-29 Bombers are still unoccupied and overgrown with scrub on Tinian in the Northern Marianas 15.072044°N, 145.638369°E
Ditto for those on Peleliu
6.998333°N, 34.232778°E; as part of the Compact of Free Association (Politically Correct way of saying they’re what was once called a protectorate) with the Republic of Palau we’re not supposed to violate their territorial sovereignty by putting anything nuclear there (they saw what happened to the Marshall Islands).
Iwo Jima Air Base is still sitting empty without much for it’s Japanese Self Defense Force custodians to do
24.784167°N, 141.3225°E
All those mothballed bases up in the Aleutians if we’ll ever again have to conduct anti-submarine warfare versus the subpens at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy