The U.S. Air Force has begin its first permanent deployment of F-35A fifth generation fighters to Misawa Air Base in Northern Japan, following in January that the service was preparing to transition the facility to support a permanent presence 48 F-35A fighters to replace 36 aging F-16CJ fourth generation fighters. This will represent the largest concentration of permanently deployed U.S. Air Force fighters in East Asia, with the transition away from the ageing F-16 expected to revolutionise the combat capabilities of the U.S. Air Force in a very high priority region near China, North Korea and the Russian Far East. Plans to replace the 35th Fighter Wing’s F-16s were first announced in July 2024. Commenting on the deployment, commander of the 13th Fighter Squadron Lieutenant Colonel John Widmer observed: “As far as transitioning from the F-16 to the F-35, the stealth capability is obviously one of the biggest things.” 

One of the First U.S. Air Force F-35A Fighters to Arrive at Misawa Air Base

With the F-16CJ being heavily specialised for air defence suppression operations, Lieutenant Colonel Widmer assessed regarding how the F-35 would enhance these capabilities. Referring to operations aimed at the suppression or destruction of adversary air defences as ‘Wild Weasel’ operations, he observed: “The F-35 was tailor made to be a weasel platform.” He continued: “Where legacy platforms performed the Wild Weasel mission with bolted-on sensors or weapons, the F-35 was built from the ground up as a sensor platform with the sensor fusion and quarterback capability we bring to the fight.” “The sensor package we bring to the fight allows us to sense the threat and manage the entire spectrum of what the enemy is fielding at us right now. It’s constantly updating, constantly getting upgraded, and as we continue forward, it’s the place I want to be if I need to go to war,” he added.

U.S. Air Force 35th Fighter Wing F-16CJ Fighter at Misawa Air Base

Further commenting on how the transition to the F-35 would bolster U.S. Air Force combat capabilities in Northeast Asia, commander of the 35th Operations Group Colonel Jeromy Guinther observed: “The Wild Weasels stand ready to defeat any threat in our area of responsibility and beyond. As you lay the foundation for Misawa’s upgrade to a fighter integration wing, remember your Wild Weasel legacy, stay ready and lethal, and continue to contribute to the Panther’ many generations of excellence.” Misawa Air Base already hosts two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35A squadrons, with the transition of U.S. Air Force fighters at the facility to the same fighter type expected to increase interoperability between the two fleets. 

F-35A and F-16CJ Fighters at Misawa Air Base

Japan is the only country that hosts permanent deployments of U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps F-35s, with the F-35B and F-35C variants already based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. This largely reflects the particularly serious challenges posed to the U.S. and its strategic partners’ air dominance in the region, primarily by China’s increasingly large and sophisticated fifth generation fighter fleet, but also by the advanced surface-to-air capabilities deployed by North Korean and Russian forces. In mid-February the Russian Aerospace Forces concentrated deployments of new Su-57 fifth generation fighters at Dzyomgi Air Base in the Khabarovsk region near neighbouring Japan, while Su-57 exports to North Korea are widely speculated to be planned as part of the fast strengthening defence ties between the two countries. Although Su-57s lack similarly advanced stealth capabilities or avionics to the F-35 or Chinese fighters like the J-20, the type’s scale of production has grown significantly, while incremental modernisation has fulled expectations that it will be able to comfortably outperform advanced ‘4+ generation’ fighters. 

Fourth Prototype of China`s Ultra-Long Range Sixth Generation Fighter

The F-35 is the only fifth generation fighter in production in the Western world, with no single fighter type having been relied on as heavily in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces. Nevertheless, with China expected become the world’s first country to field sixth generation fighters in the early 2030s, there have been significant calls in the U.S. to divert investment away from the F-35 program to prioritise accelerating the F-47 sixth generation program. Major development issues have meant that the F-35 is not expected to be brought up to the Block 4 standard considered necessary for high intensity combat until the early 2030s, while availability rates have remained outstandingly poor. It is nevertheless the only NATO-standard fighter capable of going head-to-head with China’s J-20 and J-35 fifth generation fighters without facing a very significant disadvantage.