The recent Japan Air Self-Defense Force deployment to Guam for exercise Cope North, involving 250 airmen, six Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters, one Boeing KC-46 aerial tanker and two Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye radar planes, is a first for the JASDF – and a sign of the Japanese air arm’s determination to align its training and doctrine with the US Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, both of which also sent F-35s to the war game.
Additional three-way exercises involving Japanese, American and Australian stealth fighters are planned for this year and next, under the terms of a memorandum Japanese, US and Australian officials signed in May. “This symbolizes the steady progress in Defense cooperation and exchanges among the three nations,” said Gen Hiroaki Chiura, the JASDF chief of staff.
The cooperation is more urgent than ever two months after Chinese industry
one a far-flying medium bomber, the other a possible carrier-borne fighter – that could equip People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Navy regiments in the 2030s.
The carrier fighter, the Shenyang J-XX, has a lot of company in the region, as the US and Japanese militaries are both acquiring versions of the F-35 that can fly from carriers and smaller assault ships. But the Chengdu J-36 medium bomber with its apparent combination of stealth, range and payload is unprecedented and without an unclassified equal anywhere in the world.
Japanese planners expect a hard fight in the air space around the Japanese islands in the event China invades Taiwan – a contingency many observers anticipate by 2027 – and Tokyo intervenes, with or without the help of the increasingly erratic and isolated administration of US president Donald Trump.
The JASDF was already on track to be one of the world’s main operators of F-35s – it plans to buy 147 of the stealth fighters – when, last month, it also announced a huge buy of radar-guided
For $3.6 billion, Japan would get 1,200 missiles. While locally-made AAM-4 air-to-air missiles fit under the wings of the JASDF’s approximately 200 Boeing F-15s and 85 Mitsubishi F-2s, they don’t fit inside the internal weapons bays of the F-35. Stealth aircraft need to carry weapons internally to be fully stealthy. To give the F-35s the best chance of sneaking up on Chinese jets undetected, the Japanese need AIM-120s. At present an F-35 can carry four AMRAAMs internally: with the forthcoming “Sidekick” upgrade this will increase to six, so Japan would have a full load or two for its entire future F-35 fleet.
The opposing aircraft include the roughly 200 Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters the Chinese PLAAF has acquired in a heroic, decade-long industrial effort. The J-20 might not be as stealthy as its closest analogue, the US Air Force’s Lockheed Martin F-22, but it’s already more numerous. Production of the F-22 ended with 195 examples back in 2011; production of the J-20 is not only ongoing – there are new and better variants in the works.
In terms of scale, violence and sophistication, a full-scale air war over the western Pacific could defy many projections. Outnumbered four to one by Chinese fighters, Japanese fighters probably can’t win alone – even after accounting for the JASDF’s improving training and growing missile stocks.
Add hundreds of American, Australian and Taiwanese fighters to the mix, however, and the odds might be even. Sadly for the air force professionals doing their best to make the increasingly likely war winnable, their efforts may fall victim to the bizarre politics of Trump’s second term.
Having already cast Mexico and Canada as America’s foes and threatened to annex Canada, Panama and Denmark’s Greenland, Trump cannot be counted on to defend Taiwan. It’s worth noting that Tulsa Gabbard, the has argued for the United States to take a softer stance toward China.
That would be at odds with the otherwise intensive preparation for a possible aerial clash over the western Pacific.
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