Looking for Friendly Overseas Base, Pentagon Finds It Already Has One
April 7, 2004
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - Washed by a southwesterly Pacific breeze, a line of B-52 Stratofortress bombers stand parked on the hot tarmac here, their tails stenciled with "MT," a reminder that they flew here recently from the snows of Minot, N.D.
Away for more than a decade, the B-52's, the United States' largest bombers, are back in Guam, part of a wide-ranging drive by the Pentagon to make this island, an American territory, a "power projection hub" on the edge of Asia.
"We are openly talking about putting a fighter wing there, a tanker squadron there, a Global Hawk group there," Gen. William J. Begert, Pacific Air Forces commander, said by telephone from Hawaii, almost 4,000 miles east of here. The Global Hawk is an unmanned surveillance plane.
"Guam, first of all, is U.S. territory," General Begert said. "I don't need overflight rights. I don't need landing rights. I always have permission to go to Guam. It might as well be California or New Jersey."
Next year, Washington is to decide on a new round of base closings, the first in a decade. Opening the debate, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reported to Congress on March 23 that the military had 24 percent more base capacity than it needed.
Judging by Mr. Rumsfeld's comments after his trip here last November, Guam will be a winner in the base-closing process. This volcanic, 209-square-mile island, with a population of about 160,000, fits the Pentagon's new strategy of creating "lily pads" to allow for the rapid deployment of military muscle.
"Rumsfeld keeps saying, `What about Guam? Let's build up Guam,' " said an American diplomat in Tokyo, where the defense secretary stopped after visiting here.
The Navy loss its base at Subic Bay, the Philippines, in 1992 after the Philippine Senate refused to extend the lease, and American memories of that remain sharp. The diplomat added, "We don't want to be somewhere where they don't want us, where they can throw us out."
At the naval station here, Rear Adm. Arthur J. Johnson, the commander, said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had raised Guam's strategic value as the Pentagon realized the usefulness of an all-American outpost in Asia. "We invested huge amounts of money in facilities we could not use when we needed them, for example, Saudi Arabia," Admiral Johnson said. "Places where the U.S. is autonomous have come greatly to the fore."
Military officials here declined to discuss how Guam would fit into an American response to the rapid rise of China. But by moving ships and submarines to Guam, the Pentagon cuts "the tyranny of distance," trimming five days off a Pacific crossing from Hawaii, said Richard Halloran, a military analyst based in Hawaii.
"A lot of these moves are intended to deter China," Mr. Halloran, a freelance military writer, said from Honolulu, where the United States Pacific Command is based. "You are not threatening China, not in any way jeopardizing their security. On the other hand, if China becomes belligerent, you are in position to do something about it, particularly with the submarines and an aircraft carrier."
Carl Peterson, a businessman on Guam, said of Washington's low-key military buildup here: "It just sort of happens. Why disclose it? Why tell the Chinese what you are going to do before you do it?"
Later this year, a new nuclear-powered attack submarine is to arrive here, the third to make Guam its home port since 2002. While Washington debates whether a carrier should come here or to Hawaii, Guam's outer harbor is being dredged and World War II-era wharves are to be repaired for more efficient munitions handling.
["Guam's geo-strategic importance cannot be overstated," Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the senior military officer in the Pacific, with 300,000 soldiers, sailors and marines under his command, said on March 31 in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. "Both Navy and Air Force facilities will continue to figure prominently in Guam's increasing role as a power projection hub."]
Across the naval station here, new housing is being built, part of a near- doubling of military spending on the island from levels of a decade ago.
"Guam is no longer the trailer park of the Pacific," Admiral Johnson said of the new military investment. "Guam has emerged from backwater status to the center of the radar screen. This is rapidly becoming a focus for logistics, for strategic planning."
Washington's investment in Guam is most easily seen from the catwalk of Andersen's 13-story air traffic control tower.
Down below, work is under way on an air-conditioned, typhoon-resistant hangar for B-1 bombers, a huge war reserve material warehouse, a new base exchange shopping center, a new fitness and health center and a new base security center. Out of sight, new underground pipes are delivering aviation fuel directly to parking pads for jets, and the first of 60 munitions storage "igloos" are being built. To foil terrorists, workers are drilling water wells on base and burying power lines off base.
"This is by far the largest amount of construction I have seen at any Air Force base in my years in the service," said Capt. David Vandenburg, a 29-year-old Oklahoman who is chief of base development.
Captain Vandenburg's commander, Col. Paul K. White, said that when he was assigned here a year ago he was leery of Guam because of its sleepy reputation. "But this is a very exciting time to be here," he continued. "If bases are closed, the units will have to go somewhere."
Of the Pentagon's new appreciation for Guam, Mr. Peterson said: "Rumsfeld is high on Guam; he was heard asking, `How are we going to do Guam?' They are not showing their hand. But through innuendo and comments that we pick up on, everybody is suggesting there is going to be so much going on here."
While apartments, fitness centers and military support offices are not glamorous, they are essential for increasing what Capt. David M. Boone, a Navy Seabee, calls Guam's "surge capacity." In a military emergency, the island could quickly swell with planes, submarines, and ships.
"The real trick for me is to figure out how many people are going to be living here 10 years from now," said Captain Boone, who has command of military construction on Guam. "It is a moving target."
Guam has been a supply base since Spanish galleons from Manila stopped here to pick up fresh water and food before crossing the Pacific to Acapulco, Mexico. In the late 19th century, the island was a Spanish coaling station; the United States gained control in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. In recent decades, Air Force pilots dubbed Guam "the world's largest gas station."
But it is increasingly being used for military training. The Marines have rented typhoon-damaged structures for urban warfare exercises. Rural warfare training has been conducted in the southern jungles, forests so thick that one holdout Japanese soldier from World War II was captured only in 1972.
About 150 miles north of here, a small island serves as a bombing range. There is also the wide-open sea and the sky above it, with no one to complain about sonic booms.
"In Minot, the nearest bombing range is in Utah, a two-and-a-half hour flight," said Lt. Col. Robert Hyde, a 37-year-old Mississippian who commands the base's new unit of six B-52's. Referring to his training here with the Navy, Colonel Hyde said, "In North Dakota, obviously, you can't work easily with a carrier battle group."
During the Christmas 1972 bombing of North Vietnam, more than 150 B-52's flew from here. On a recent morning, bulldozers and pavers were upgrading the acres of tarmac that make Andersen comparable to a major international airport.
In this treeless landscape, even B-52's look small. In the shade of one the planes' huge, drooping wings, Master Sgt. Ralph Gillikan, a mechanic last stationed at the North Dakota base, surveyed the surrounding sea of concrete and said, "The parking here is good."
Showing posts with label Power Projection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power Projection. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Dot on the Map Regains Large Strategic Stature
Dot on the Map Regains Large Strategic Stature
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
January 28, 2003 in print edition A-5
TUMON BAY, Guam – In 1898, an intrepid Navy captain named Henry Glass boldly sailed his warship to this tropical isle and announced to the startled Spanish governor that the United States was taking control. The U.S. and Spain were at war, and the Navy needed Guam as a coaling station to support its fleet.
More than a century later, as the Bush administration threatens war with Iraq, Guam is once again a key factor in America’s ability to project military power in Asia and beyond. If there is an air war, B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers will probably be refueled in midair by planes loaded with jet fuel from three enormous tank farms run by the Air Force here.
And if those planes need more bombs, Guam’s cache of air-to-ground munitions is the largest in the region.
“Lots of things change in this world – weather, politics, economics – but geography doesn’t change,” said Adm. Walter Doran, commander of the Pacific Fleet. “Guam is where it is, and it will always be important to the security of the United States.”
Although the military downplays them, signs of a buildup are everywhere. For months, ships loaded with all the necessities of war – food, fuel, gear and ammunition – have been arriving at the Navy’s turquoise deep-water harbor. From here, beans and bullets are transferred to ships headed for the Persian Gulf.
Marines have trained here for street fighting at the new urban combat center, a complex of 200 buildings where troops learn the skills that may be needed if the U.S. offensive takes to the streets. Pilots from aircraft carriers have done numerous bombing runs on desolate Farallon de Medinilla island 188 miles to the north, the Navy’s only live-fire range in the western Pacific.
Still, for all of Guam’s centrality to the business of war, life appears calm on this self-governing, palm-tree-lined American territory 3,400 miles southwest of Hawaii. There is more talk about the aftermath of Typhoon Pongsona, which hit the island with 180-mph winds on Dec. 8, than there is of an impending war. Questions about a possible war are answered in confident, matter-of-fact tones.
“If the balloon goes up, we’re going to be ready to support a large number of aircraft and people flowing through here,” said Col. Joe Mudd, commander of the Air Force wing on Guam. “That’s what we do here.” That Guam remains central to U.S. military strategy shows how rapidly events have changed from what was anticipated after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
In 1993, the civilian-run Base Realignment and Closure Commission, assigned by Congress to downsize the military for the post-Cold War era, targeted facilities on Guam for a series of reductions and closures.
To many, Guam was seen as a relic of the days when the U.S. needed to be ready to engage the Soviet navy on the high seas. But even as the downsizing was being implemented, a cross-current in military thinking rediscovered Guam’s strategic position – just hours by air from most major Asian capitals – and the value of forward-deployed forces.
The result was that even as some facilities were being closed and the number of military personnel dropped by half, construction of new facilities was approved and new military units were assigned to the island. Guam, for example, will soon become home to a 250-person unit assigned to protect U.S. ships and personnel in foreign ports, a reaction to the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which left 17 sailors dead.
Since 2000, military construction on Guam has topped more than $300 million, with much more to come. Although nearly all of the projects were approved before Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center confirmed the significance of Guam as a logistic hub, a way to reduce what the military calls the “tyranny of distance” from U.S. bases to the front lines of conflict.
Guam may never again reach the Cold War level when B-52s, ballistic-missile submarines and 10,000 sailors were stationed on this 212-square-mile island. But the idea of Guam as a backwater whose significance is waning has vanished.
“In my mind, Guam is going to be more important in the 21st century than it was at the latter part of the 20th,” said Doran, the fleet commander.
Talk like that is music to the ears of the officials on Guam, where a population of 160,000 is mired in double-digit unemployment. Devoid of manufacturing or agriculture, the local economy is dependent on the U.S. military and on Japanese tourists – for whom Guam is a low-budget alternative to Hawaii.
The U.S. cutbacks and the long slump of the Japanese economy have hit Guam like a punch to the gut.
Much of the island has a tumbledown look that ill fits the lushly green environment and sparkling beaches. Guamanian officials have encouraged the military to consider the island as a perfect spot to stage troops for the nation’s war on terrorism and possible conflict on the Korean peninsula, less than 2,000 miles away. A poll shows that 80% of the public agrees.
“All eyes should be on Guam after 9/11,” said the territory’s new U.S. congresswoman, Madeleine Bordallo. “Guam is not just the past. It is America’s future.” Bordallo has made military expansion her top priority. As Guam’s only representative, Bordallo has a vote in committee but not in the full House.
Support for the military may be higher in Guam than anywhere in the world where the U.S. has a base. Each year, Guam celebrates Liberation Day to commemorate the landing on Asan Beach by Marines in 1944 that ended a brutal occupation by Japanese forces.
Only after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II were the Japanese routed and the native Chamorros freed from concentration camps and hiding places in the densely forested mountains. After the liberation, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz made Guam his headquarters for the final year of war.
In a report circulated in Congress, the Guam Chamber of Commerce noted that Guam is “a slice of America in the Western Pacific
The Navy has stationed two attack submarines at Guam, with a third on its way. The Marines say that the urban warfare center is superior to those at Camp Pendleton and at Camp Lejeune, N.C. And at Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, the 66-million-gallon fuel tank system is the largest the Air Force runs anywhere in the world.
The system, still not complete, has already paid dividends. During the first two months of the U.S. offensive against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the base provided 21 million gallons of fuel for warplanes.
“We did a year’s worth of fuel in two months,” said Maj. Robert Gibson.
Not all the military investment in Guam involves planes and ships. In 1997, with the approval of Congress, the Department of Defense opted to begin its own school system for the children of 4,000 sailors and 2,000 Air Force personnel.
Dissatisfaction with the local schools had long been a major complaint of personnel assigned here. And so with a massive airlift of materials and manpower by Air Force C-5 cargo planes, the military set about renovating buildings for its system, which now has two elementary and two middle schools and one high school.
At Guam South Elementary-Middle School, students seem untouched by their parents’ preparations for war. But their young lives have been changed in ways they cannot see. Since Sept. 11, the school has adopted a code-word system to warn teachers of potential trouble. Navy police are on alert to respond. As the most remote piece of America, Guam lives with a daily sense of vulnerability.
“Sept. 11 left a deep mark on this island, no doubt about it,” said school principal William Hall.
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
January 28, 2003 in print edition A-5
TUMON BAY, Guam – In 1898, an intrepid Navy captain named Henry Glass boldly sailed his warship to this tropical isle and announced to the startled Spanish governor that the United States was taking control. The U.S. and Spain were at war, and the Navy needed Guam as a coaling station to support its fleet.
More than a century later, as the Bush administration threatens war with Iraq, Guam is once again a key factor in America’s ability to project military power in Asia and beyond. If there is an air war, B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers will probably be refueled in midair by planes loaded with jet fuel from three enormous tank farms run by the Air Force here.
And if those planes need more bombs, Guam’s cache of air-to-ground munitions is the largest in the region.
“Lots of things change in this world – weather, politics, economics – but geography doesn’t change,” said Adm. Walter Doran, commander of the Pacific Fleet. “Guam is where it is, and it will always be important to the security of the United States.”
Although the military downplays them, signs of a buildup are everywhere. For months, ships loaded with all the necessities of war – food, fuel, gear and ammunition – have been arriving at the Navy’s turquoise deep-water harbor. From here, beans and bullets are transferred to ships headed for the Persian Gulf.
Marines have trained here for street fighting at the new urban combat center, a complex of 200 buildings where troops learn the skills that may be needed if the U.S. offensive takes to the streets. Pilots from aircraft carriers have done numerous bombing runs on desolate Farallon de Medinilla island 188 miles to the north, the Navy’s only live-fire range in the western Pacific.
Still, for all of Guam’s centrality to the business of war, life appears calm on this self-governing, palm-tree-lined American territory 3,400 miles southwest of Hawaii. There is more talk about the aftermath of Typhoon Pongsona, which hit the island with 180-mph winds on Dec. 8, than there is of an impending war. Questions about a possible war are answered in confident, matter-of-fact tones.
“If the balloon goes up, we’re going to be ready to support a large number of aircraft and people flowing through here,” said Col. Joe Mudd, commander of the Air Force wing on Guam. “That’s what we do here.” That Guam remains central to U.S. military strategy shows how rapidly events have changed from what was anticipated after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
In 1993, the civilian-run Base Realignment and Closure Commission, assigned by Congress to downsize the military for the post-Cold War era, targeted facilities on Guam for a series of reductions and closures.
To many, Guam was seen as a relic of the days when the U.S. needed to be ready to engage the Soviet navy on the high seas. But even as the downsizing was being implemented, a cross-current in military thinking rediscovered Guam’s strategic position – just hours by air from most major Asian capitals – and the value of forward-deployed forces.
The result was that even as some facilities were being closed and the number of military personnel dropped by half, construction of new facilities was approved and new military units were assigned to the island. Guam, for example, will soon become home to a 250-person unit assigned to protect U.S. ships and personnel in foreign ports, a reaction to the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which left 17 sailors dead.
Since 2000, military construction on Guam has topped more than $300 million, with much more to come. Although nearly all of the projects were approved before Sept. 11, the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center confirmed the significance of Guam as a logistic hub, a way to reduce what the military calls the “tyranny of distance” from U.S. bases to the front lines of conflict.
Guam may never again reach the Cold War level when B-52s, ballistic-missile submarines and 10,000 sailors were stationed on this 212-square-mile island. But the idea of Guam as a backwater whose significance is waning has vanished.
“In my mind, Guam is going to be more important in the 21st century than it was at the latter part of the 20th,” said Doran, the fleet commander.
Talk like that is music to the ears of the officials on Guam, where a population of 160,000 is mired in double-digit unemployment. Devoid of manufacturing or agriculture, the local economy is dependent on the U.S. military and on Japanese tourists – for whom Guam is a low-budget alternative to Hawaii.
The U.S. cutbacks and the long slump of the Japanese economy have hit Guam like a punch to the gut.
Much of the island has a tumbledown look that ill fits the lushly green environment and sparkling beaches. Guamanian officials have encouraged the military to consider the island as a perfect spot to stage troops for the nation’s war on terrorism and possible conflict on the Korean peninsula, less than 2,000 miles away. A poll shows that 80% of the public agrees.
“All eyes should be on Guam after 9/11,” said the territory’s new U.S. congresswoman, Madeleine Bordallo. “Guam is not just the past. It is America’s future.” Bordallo has made military expansion her top priority. As Guam’s only representative, Bordallo has a vote in committee but not in the full House.
Support for the military may be higher in Guam than anywhere in the world where the U.S. has a base. Each year, Guam celebrates Liberation Day to commemorate the landing on Asan Beach by Marines in 1944 that ended a brutal occupation by Japanese forces.
Only after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II were the Japanese routed and the native Chamorros freed from concentration camps and hiding places in the densely forested mountains. After the liberation, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz made Guam his headquarters for the final year of war.
In a report circulated in Congress, the Guam Chamber of Commerce noted that Guam is “a slice of America in the Western Pacific
The Navy has stationed two attack submarines at Guam, with a third on its way. The Marines say that the urban warfare center is superior to those at Camp Pendleton and at Camp Lejeune, N.C. And at Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base, the 66-million-gallon fuel tank system is the largest the Air Force runs anywhere in the world.
The system, still not complete, has already paid dividends. During the first two months of the U.S. offensive against the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the base provided 21 million gallons of fuel for warplanes.
“We did a year’s worth of fuel in two months,” said Maj. Robert Gibson.
Not all the military investment in Guam involves planes and ships. In 1997, with the approval of Congress, the Department of Defense opted to begin its own school system for the children of 4,000 sailors and 2,000 Air Force personnel.
Dissatisfaction with the local schools had long been a major complaint of personnel assigned here. And so with a massive airlift of materials and manpower by Air Force C-5 cargo planes, the military set about renovating buildings for its system, which now has two elementary and two middle schools and one high school.
At Guam South Elementary-Middle School, students seem untouched by their parents’ preparations for war. But their young lives have been changed in ways they cannot see. Since Sept. 11, the school has adopted a code-word system to warn teachers of potential trouble. Navy police are on alert to respond. As the most remote piece of America, Guam lives with a daily sense of vulnerability.
“Sept. 11 left a deep mark on this island, no doubt about it,” said school principal William Hall.
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