Warplanes bearing the bright red Rising Sun logo roaredoverhead Sunday as Japan held a once-every-three-years display to showcase oneof the best air forces in Asia. The only problem — most of its fighters weregrounded.
Underscoring Japan's uphill battle in an increasingly heatedrace to control the skies over Asia, the air review came just a week after thecountry's entire F-15 fleet was ordered into its hangers for safety checksfollowing a midair accident, the second such order in three months.
But in an effort to counterbalance big strides by China andRussia toward deploying new stealthy aircraft, Japan's Air Self-Defense Forcesare about to get a multibillion dollar overhaul.
For Sunday's review, the F-15s — the workhorse of Japan'sair defenses — were relegated to ground displays, either parked on the runwayor allowed to taxi but not take off. Last weekend, an empty fuel tank burst anddetached from a F-15 on a training flight, causing the grounding order. InJuly, an F-15 flying out of Okinawa crashed into the ocean. The pilot is listedas missing and presumed dead.
The accidents reinforced what military planners alreadyknew: Japan's aging air force has seen better days. But after years of delaysand budget battles, Japan is expected to announce by the end of December a newfighter deal that will likely shape Asian air security for decades to come.
"The JASDF is on the edge of becoming a major tool ofpower projection," said Michael Auslin, a Japan security expert with theAmerican Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "Withits fighter selection process, it will signal whether it intends to bequalitatively competitive with leading air forces around the region over thenext generation."
Japan — with 362 fighter jets, mostly F-15s, F-4s and F-2s —is already one of the top air powers in the region.
But planners have long been concerned by the increasing ageand expense of maintaining the fleet — along with this country's ability tomatch the improving air capabilities of neighboring Russia and China. Japan hasbeen using the F-15 as its centerpiece fighter since the early 1980s, thoughthey have been updated over the years. Japan flies about 200 of the planes.
Tokyo's first choice was the United States' stealthy F-22Raptor, which can cruise at supersonic speeds and is hailed by many aviationexperts as the most advanced fighter in the skies. Japan is the only countrywhere the F-22 is regularly deployed overseas, having done several rotations tothe U.S. Kadena Air Base on the southern island of Okinawa.
Acquiring the F-22 would have been a quantum leap for Japan.
Because of its sensitive technology, the U.S. Congress hasopposed selling the F-22 abroad. Budget restraints in the United States havefurther forced Washington to drastically reduce its own orders for the priceyplane, whose future is now cloudy.
With the F-22 out of the picture, Japan has set its sightson three jets as its next mainstay fighter — the Lockheed F-35, Boeing's F/A-18Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon. The hotly contested deal for morethan 40 "F-X," or next generation, planes is worth upwards of $8billion. The first planes are expected to begin arriving in 2016.
Japan is likely to go with one of the American options.
Washington is Tokyo's main ally. Roughly 50,000 U.S. troopsare stationed in Japan under a security pact. Japan's air forces must workclosely with their American counterparts, and using the same or similarequipment makes that easier.
Japan's main concerns are China and Russia — with whom ithas longstanding territorial disputes — along with the threat of North Koreanballistic missiles.
China, whose military has been growing more capable andassertive in the region, recently rolled out its next-generation stealthfighter, the much-touted Chengdu J-20. Though that fighter may be years awayfrom actual operations, it is seen as a rival to the F-22 and far superior towhat Japan now has.
Russia, which is also making advances in its stealthcapabilities, sent two strategic bombers on a mission to circumnavigate theJapanese islands last month — a move seen as a test of the new government ofPrime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, which had just been launched six days before.
"With the provocative actions of North Korea, and therapid growth of China's military, along with its increased activity in nearbywaters, the security situation around our country is becoming murkier,"Noda said in a speech at the air review. "We must ask you to tighten thestrings on your samurai helmets."
The growing military activity around Japan has beenreflected in a sharp increase in emergency "scrambles" by Japanesefighters to respond to airspace violations. Scramble orders were issued 386times last year — up nearly 25 percent, according to the Defense Ministry.Virtually all were Chinese or Russian incursions.
Such challenges have given the overhaul plan a boost,despite Japan's steadily declining defense budget over the past decade — asharp contrast to China's double-digit growth.
They have also pushed Tokyo closer to Washington.
Last year, Japan agreed to allow tankers acquired in 2008 toconduct midair refueling of U.S. warplanes. The pact only provides forrefueling during exercises, but experts say it a step toward bolstering thecapability of both countries to jointly respond to regional threats.