The US Air Force is planning to lease 33 acres of land on the small Pacific island of Saipan for the next 50 years to build a "divert airfield" on an old World War II airbase there, according to the Foreign Policy magazine. American jets would use the small airstrip in case access to the US super-base at Guam "or other Western Pacific airfields is limited or denied," according to an Air Force document on the project which was reviewed by the FP. The Air Force specifically wants to expand the existing Saipan International Airport - built on a military base and used by Japan, and later the US during the World War II - to carry out "periodic divert landings, joint military exercises, and joint and combined humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts," according to the documents. This is in accordance with a new strategy called Air-Sea Battle, under which the Pentagon is combining air and naval forces to counter “the increasingly formidable defenses of nations like China or Iran,” the report said.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:15:15 +0000
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