United States Government Has Plans of Resurrecting World War II-Era Military Bases in 2023 to Prepare for Confrontation With China
Jose Nino
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The United States government has started reviving major World War II-era military installations in the Pacific in 2023 as part of a broader effort to confront China.
Towards the start of December, a US Air Force general asserted that the US has made “significant progress” towards reclaiming the Tinian North airfield on the Marianas Island chain. This airfield is notorious due to how it was the location from which the US launched its strategic bombers against Japan throughout WWII.
Curiously, the plan has not been officially announced by the Department of Defense (DOD). This move represents an increasing trend of US military buildups in the Pacific region designed to counter the rise of China.
“If you pay attention in the next few months, you will see significant progress, especially at Tinian North,” General Kenneth Wilsbach, the commander of the Pacific Air Forces, said to Japanese outlet Nikkei.
The airfield “has extensive pavement underneath the overgrown jungle. We’ll be clearing that jungle out between now and summertime,” Wilsbach stated, by calling attention that the structure will be “extensive” once it is finished, but did not indicate when that would occur.
Airfield access will back the Air Force’s strategy to spread aircraft throughout the Indo-Pacific and guarantee better survivability of military assets against the potential threat China’s missile arsenal presents. US Army Air Forces left the strip abandoned after World War II, even though the US still asserts territorial control of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has responded to these developments by asserting that it will maintain Beijing’s maritime sovereignty and primacy in the region. It will do so by keeping tabs on US military activities, a spokesperson noted.
“The United States continues to strengthen its Asia-Pacific deployments, this is full of a Cold War mindset,” Chinese defense ministry spokesperson, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, said on December 28, 2023 per a report by Reuters. “Its goal is for its own selfish gains and to maintain its hegemony. Its nature is to stoke confrontation.”
The US is starting to begin its “pivot to Asia” in earnest where it will concentrate on containing the rise of an ascendant China no matter the costs. Such a geopolitical endeavor is dangerous to say the least as it involves two nuclear powers. Such calculations don’t register for political elites who are completely captured by a universalist foreign policy ethos.
If cooler heads don’t prevail, the US could potentially enter a disastrous thermonuclear conflict.
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