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To travel with America’s secretary of defence, as I have been
doing this week, is to behold the might of America’s armed forces. Lloyd
Austin flew to Asia on board the E-4B, aka the “Doomsday Plane”, a
flying command post capable of overseeing a nuclear war. Its few windows
have an embedded metal mesh that protects the plane from the
electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion.
The converted Boeing 747 features large TV screens—we had
non-stop American news channels across six split screens, a Godzilla
movie and even a bit of the Olympics. It also includes a conference
room, banks of computers, a miles-long antenna to communicate with
submarines carrying ballistic missiles, a cabin for Mr Austin and
hot-bunks for the crew.
Over the Rockies and then over the Aleutian islands, the E-4B
was met by air-refuelling tankers to keep it flying. Fifteen hours
later, at Yokota air base in Japan, we were met by three Black Hawk
helicopters. They lifted Mr Austin and his retinue to central Tokyo. An
armoured car awaited him; we journalists were packed in a van about a
dozen vehicles back, as white-gloved Japanese police escorted us past a
knot of protesters opposed to America’s large military bases in Okinawa.
Rather than less American presence, however, Japan is getting a
lot more of it. The big announcement in Tokyo was that America had
decided to create, for the first time in decades, a full-fledged
warfighting command in Japan.
It is intended to match Japan’s new American-style joint
command that will belatedly bring together air, sea, land and other
forces.
America and Japan announced plans to boost their military
presence along Japan’s south-western islands, close to Taiwan. And
nearly 80 years after America dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima,
Japan is asking for, and getting, stronger reassurances of America’s
readiness to defend Japan with nuclear weapons.
Another milestone in Tokyo was the formalisation of the nascent
three-way partnership between America, Japan and South Korea. Shin
Won-sik was the first South Korean defence minister to make an official
visit to Japan in 15 years; he attended the first trilateral meeting to
be hosted there.
After Tokyo we flew to Manila, where America is set to announce
a big push to strengthen the Philippines’ armed forces as they face
growing pressure from China in disputed parts of the South China Sea.
The package will include $500m in military aid and a further $128m to
upgrade the so-called EDCA sites—Philippine bases to which American
forces now have access for “rotational” forces. This is not a return to
the days when America had a large permanent military presence in its
former colony. But Mr Austin’s expected appearance in Subic Bay, a
former American naval base, is a clear signal to China.
In Tokyo and Manila, Mr Austin was joined by Antony Blinken,
the secretary of state, for so-called 2+2 meetings (of foreign and
defence ministers); a further 2+2 is planned with Australia in Annapolis
soon. In short, America has been busy reinforcing its presence along
the “first island chain” that girdles China, and beyond. Indeed,
American officials talk of these being “the ten most consequential days”
for American defence policy in the Indo-Pacific under President Joe
Biden.
Yet the question on everyone’s mind, as America’s presidential
election approaches, is whether all this effort will all be undone if
Donald Trump is elected president. Messrs Blinken and Austin insist that
strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific has a strong bipartisan
support, but uncertainty abounds.
The other big unspoken question is Taiwan. The self-governing
island, which China claims as its own, is the likeliest cause of war
between America and China. But it is hard to talk about in public
because Taiwan, a thriving democracy that almost all countries refuse to
recognise as a state, inhabits a diplomatic twilight zone. So America
will not say whether the new headquarters in Japan would oversee a
future fight over Taiwan. None of the allies will speak about what they
might do in such a war. But everyone knows that, if China succeeds in
invading Taiwan, the island-chain strategy will be broken. Some talk of
Taiwan as the “cork in the bottle”.
Strategists speak of the “tyranny of distance” in the Pacific.
As Mr Austin prepared to return to America, all aboard the E4-B will
feel it in the form of jet lag that lingers for days. There is another
realisation, too. Preserving America’s military power at a time of
deepening rivalry with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran will require a
lot more spending on defence, as a bipartisan report to Congress made
clear this week. Indeed, look closely at the E-4B and it is showing its
age (ditto the tankers that support it). Dating from the 1970s and 80s,
it regularly breaks down, so a back-up C-17 is often on hand to convey
Mr Austin’s party. The carpets are threadbare. The tray tables are
creaky. The toilets sometimes block up. For reasons large and small,
then, pray that American power in the Pacific is never seriously
tested. |