- On a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, a sprawling US airfield was left largely abandoned. For decades, the four runways at the northern edge of Tinian sat empty, swallowed up by the jungle, but now, urgent work is taking place to reclaim them. Military crews are clearing the dense overgrowth to unearth the runways in preparation for a crisis in Asia. The US hasn't needed this base in decades, but the threat of a conflict with China is rising. And Beijing has developed weapons capable of striking a vast array of targets. So the Air Force is adapting. The work on this island is one of a chain of projects that will form part of a key shift in America's military blueprint. - So what my team had to do was go through the jungle, find these coordinates on a GPS, and mark them for the boundary of the airfield. Normally what we have is a stick or machete to be able to tear down

and make a pathway through the jungle. And this is what part of the battle that we fought every day was going through the jungle to mark these points the entire day through the rain, through the humidity and the heat of the day. - [Niharika] Sergeant Branson's team spent months battling through the dense forest on Tinian. On some days they cleared areas the size of multiple American football fields until Tinian's runways were uncovered. - Over the last 60 days it's really... What they have opened up is really monumental. It's crazy how fast they've done it. - [Niharika] Major Rothschild's team is tasked with clearing years of overgrowth from the runways. - This is runway Charlie, and when we got here, if you look to your left and to your right, it was completely covered. As you can see now, looking this way behind us, it's completely opened up.

And our team is really just the first step in this process to successfully adaptively rehabilitate these runways in Tinian North Field. And that'll really be a part of history for not only Tinian North Field, the island of Tinian itself, and really the world as we move forward. - Once one of the busiest airfields in the world, Tinian's runways hosted large numbers of American bombers that struck targets in Japan during World War II. The atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded here. In the decades after the war, the picture changed and the US no longer needed airfields like Tinian. (missile launched) That era has ended. U.S. officials believe China wants to be ready by 2027 to carry out an invasion of Taiwan. Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province that it has vowed to bring under its control.

by force, if necessary. To deter China and prepare for possible conflict, the U.S. is turning to an approach called Agile Combat Employment, or ACE. This means that if the U.S.' large bases were under threat, its aircraft could fan out to a network of smaller sites. As part of ACE, the U.S. has identified airfields across the region that could be capable of receiving U.S. forces, including a longer string of islands known as the Second Island Chain. That includes civilian runways and military airstrips. The Air Force needs these sites to have at least 7,000 feet of runway. These airfields form a new network of austere locations, some of which will be clustered around larger existing hubs on islands such as Guam. Should war with China break out, the Air Force would scatter aircraft from its larger hubs across the region. The strategy is designed to combat Beijing's ability to threaten the U.S.' larger bases.

This video released by the Chinese Air Force shows a nuclear-capable bomber launching a simulated attack on what appears to be Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. As the U.S.' main airbase in the Second Island Chain, Andersen is crucial to America's ability to project power in the Indo-Pacific. This base on Guam would be an important staging point for the U.S. in any conflict in the region, and that makes it a significant target. To better protect Guam, the military plans to have a layered missile defense network incorporating THAAD, Patriot, and Aegis Systems. (missile launches) But even the most advanced defense systems might not be enough to stop an attack. So there's a new focus on making U.S. aircraft harder to take out by dispersing them. - What we're looking at for agile combat employment is to take logistics from the hub, whether that's personnel, cargo, aircraft, move them to another location,

an austere location normally, whether it's on an island or a different area, and then operate out of there. So can you spoke out and then have a sustaining force from that area and then be able to come back to the hub or use the hub to supply your logistics. - [Niharika] The need for greater agility has emerged from dramatic advances in China's capabilities. Beijing has rapidly expanded its arsenal of missiles. That includes the DF-26, an intermediate-range ballistic missile known as the Guam Killer, and hypersonic missiles like the DF-17. China's also believed to be developing hypersonic missiles designed to reach the Second Island Chain. Unlike a traditional ballistic missile, which follows a predictable trajectory, hypersonic missiles can change direction mid-flight, making them much harder to shoot down. That means Andersen is at risk. So the Air Force is building more options to spread out aircraft. On the island's Northwest Field, additional facilities

are being built and disused. Airstrips are being revived to expand the number of landing sites. - We wanna stay flexible, stay agile, and make sure that we can meet the needs of the mission. And this is just another way of getting after that. You know, two is better than one, six is better than five. So just increasing our numbers, our capability, and allowing different aircraft to land, take off and improve the overall capability here on Andersen Air Force base and Northwest Field. - [Niharika] The work on Guam and revival of Tinian's forgotten airfield next door are part of an immense U.S. effort that stretches to remote corners of the Pacific. The result will be a contingency strategy on a sweeping scale. America left this airfield to the jungle, confident it was no longer needed. Soon it may be of vital importance once more. (violin music)

Why the U.S. Is Reviving a Remote Island Airfield Used in Atomic Bombings | WSJ

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