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Guam: The New Pearl Harbor
If there were another "Pearl Harbor" type surprise attack in the Pacific, it would not hit Hawaii, but Guam. There, Anderson Air Force Base, and the surrounding logistical complex, is the most important American military base in the Pacific. Anderson's several 10,000 foot air strips can handle any aircraft in the American inventory, and lots of them at the same time. Air power, not warships, would dominate in another major war, and Guam is the big Pacific base for the United States. Anderson's ammo bunkers hold over 100,000 bombs and missiles. Fuel storage holds over a quarter million tons of jet fuel. Each B-52 flying off from Guam carries over 140 tons of jet fuel, each F-15, over five tons. KC-135 tankers fly off with nearly a hundred tons of fuel on board. Guams workshops can repair aircraft as well as ships. The island, which is American territory, also contains a naval base and facilities for naval aviation. Guam also has some downsides. It's small (212 square miles) and dry. While the natives are great, there are not many of them, and there's not much else. So everything has to be imported. Because there's not much there there, troops don't like to be stationed on Guam. But it isn't in the middle of nowhere, it's in the middle of everywhere. Guam is 2,500 kilometers from Tokyo, Japan, 2,700 kilometers from Taiwan, 2,500 kilometers from the Philippines, 1,800 kilometers from Indonesia, 2,900 kilometers from South Korea, 2,300 kilometers from American bases in Okinawa, and 3,000 kilometers from China. The chessboard for a Chinese campaign is evolving. The Chinese have a restrictive timetable to snatch Taiwan then go into a defensive mode. To meet this timetable they must reduce the Pacific fleet, the ports of Bremerton and San Diego. Otherwise, it is still TBD if they need to take on secondary targets, such as Guam, San Francisco, Subic Bay, the Panama Canal, or use its base in the Caribbean to attack the US Atlantic fleet. Wild cards are Japan, Australia, and India. Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-05-07 |
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