The United States sent advanced fighter jets to strategic air bases in three Southeast Asian states around the South China Sea last week, displaying American airpower in the contested region.
The stealthy U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors visited Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines from August 6 to 10, following the end of air combat exercise Pitch Black in Australia on August 2. They also stopped for dynamic force employment operations on their way back to the Kadena Air Base in Japan.
The tour of the F-22s comes as regional tensions remain high because of maritime disputes between China and the Philippines, a U.S. security ally in the region. Aircraft and vessels from both sides have had close encounters multiple times while the U.S. conducted exercises to showcase its support to Manila.
The F-22 is a fifth-generation fighter jet capable of executing air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. It has a sophisticated sensor suite that enables the pilot to engage aerial threats before being detected. The Air Force has said the Raptor "cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft."
The Raptors that toured across the U.S. allies in the South China Sea are assigned to the Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. In April, they were forward deployed to the Kadena Air Base on Japan's Okinawa Island to "maintain a steady-state fighter presence in the Indo-Pacific region," the base announced.
Dynamic force employment is a U.S. operational concept amid global competition against China and Russia. It advocates for the military to be more operationally unpredictable for adversaries and able to deploy proactively and rapidly for deterring aggressors and reassuring allies.
Four F-22s landed at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Air Force Base in Indonesia on August 6, marking the first time the U.S. fifth-generation aircraft have landed in the archipelagic state. They conducted a rapid "hot pit" refueling there, a process of refueling an aircraft while its engines are still running.
Meanwhile, four F-22s arrived at Rimba Air Force Base in Brunei for a three-day capability and static display tour, which concluded on August 8. They became the second type of American fifth-generation fighter jets to touch down there, following the arrival of the F-35 Lightning II in March.
For their last stopover in the South China Sea, six F-22s visited the Philippines from August 8 to 9. They landed at Basa Air Base and Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, where two of them conducted bilateral integration exercises with the Philippine air force.
For many regional states, strategic competition between the U.S. and China is the broader concern, said Evan A. Laksmana, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia military modernization at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the editor of the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment.
For some Southeast Asian states, keeping the U.S. involved in the regional security architecture remained imperative to counterbalance China's coercive behavior, he told Newsweek, but others were concerned that the "price of presence" entailed a broader strategic alignment against China.
"Exercise and engagement complexity and frequency involving the U.S. and Southeast Asian states have grown in recent years to keep the U.S. engaged, while being careful at the same time to not unnecessarily encourage escalation with China," Laksmana said of the F-22's tour in the region.
To deter and perhaps win a regional contingency against China, the ability to work and operate with some partners and allies in Southeast Asia is increasingly needed for the U.S., he added, "even if some of them can only provide passive access."
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