WASHINGTON -- China has fortified its air bases in recent years with enough concrete to pave a four-lane highway from Washington to Chicago, a U.S. think tank reports, giving Beijing an advantage compared with enemy airfields in a potential conflict over Taiwan.
The People's Liberation Army has more than doubled the number of "hardened" aircraft shelters since the early 2010s, to over 800 from 370, a new report from the conservative Hudson Institute said.
"Concrete Sky: Air Base Hardening in the Western Pacific," authored by Tom Shugart and Timothy Walton, sheds light on China's relentless drive to enhance the resilience of its air base network.
Hardened shelters are built from reinforced concrete and steel, usually with blast doors. In Asian terms, the vast quantity of concrete used by China would bridge the distance between Tokyo and Seoul.
The number of non-hardened shelters, which may provide partial protection from shrapnel, has grown from 1,100 to over 2,300.
China now possesses over 3,000 shelters, enough to house and hide the vast majority of its combat aircraft, the report said.
The authors emphasize the striking contrast between China's fortified airfields and the relatively modest efforts undertaken by the U.S. and its Asian allies. This disparity means that in any Taiwan conflict, the People's Liberation Army would require far fewer shots to incapacitate enemy airfields.
The report suggests that China could neutralize critical U.S. military assets such as aircraft and fuel stores at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni -- arguably the most important Marine Corps aviation facility in Japan -- with as few as 10 submunition-armed missiles.
The U.S. military's lack of investment in base hardening can be attributed partly to the resounding success it enjoyed in the 1990-91 Gulf War, the authors said. Precision strike weapons destroyed or damaged 375 of Iraq's 594 hardened air shelters, fueling a "distorted perception" that such structures were easily penetrable. But advancements in steel-reinforced, superhard concrete have made modern generations of hardened shelters considerably more resilient, the report underscored.
To address this imbalance, the report recommends refocusing on hardening bases, even if it means reducing investments in aircraft. Procuring one fewer B-21 strategic bomber per year over five years could provide enough money to build 100 hardened aircraft shelters in the continental United States, the authors said.
Additionally, the authors propose the U.S. Army take the lead in air base defense.
"Air base defense is arguably the most important mission the Army could perform in the Indo-Pacific," they said, suggesting that the branch shift personnel and resources away from ground-maneuver forces toward bolstering Air Defense Artillery forces.