By Lin He
Foreign media reported on September 4 that the US DoD plans to weave a global network of key combat platform repair centers, with pilot projects to be carried out in five Asian Pacific countries. This model will be respectively extended to its NATO allies covered by the US European Command in 2025, and to its Latin American partners covered by the US Southern Command in 2026.
According to the report, the US military has deployed huge amounts of weapons and equipment in the Asia Pacific. Due to a series of limitations, its vessels, aircraft and armored vehicles have to be shipped back to the US for major overhaul in the past, which is both time-consuming and energy-consuming. Meanwhile, American shipyards have been under fire for delayed delivery. There used to be 13 naval shipyards in the country, but at least nine of them have been shut down, so vessels have to wait a long time for their turn to receive repair services.
To address this, the US Navy set up repair shops at its Yokosuka and Sasebo bases in Japan, and the ship repair unit under the US Navy Logistics Group Western Pacific (COMLOG WESTPAC) has signed repair deals with shipyards in Vietnam, India and Australia. However, these measures are limited to the routine maintenance of non-combat vessels. In February this year, the US Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro visited a number of shipyards in ROK and Japan, discussing the possibility of them providing maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services for US naval vessels.
Meanwhile, the US DoD is eager to advance the program of setting up repair centers at multiple locations worldwide. The DoD also released a new Regional Sustainment Framework (RSF), which made it clear that the defense industrial facilities of the allies will be used to repair the equipment of American troops, so as to gain advantages in a combatant logistics environment and ensure better war-readiness by establishing a distributed MRO network. Under this framework, the US military has taken obviously faster steps to weave the repair network in the Asia Pacific.
According to the latest plan, the US side will set up military repair centers in five Asian Pacific countries – Japan, the ROK, Australia, Singapore, and the Philippines, in order to facilitate the MRO of its vessels, aircraft and armored vehicles close to the operation areas. This, Lowman said, will make sure both the wear and tear and the conflict-induced damage of equipment will be timely addressed.
Of the five countries to host the first batch of repair centers, Japan, the ROK, Australia and the Philippines are all US allies, while Singapore is its important security partner that often hosts US naval littoral combat ships. Moreover, Japan, the ROK, Australia and Singapore all possess advanced shipbuilding and aircraft-making/repair facilities, and the ROK, Japan and Singapore have invested in large shipyards in the Philippines. Therefore, it is politically and technically viable to set up military repair centers in them.
It must be noted that shipyards in Japan, the ROK and Australia all have their eyes on the RSF. In June this year, the ROK's Hanwha Group spent US$100 million acquiring a shipyard in Philadelphia, followed by a ship repair agreement signed between HANHWA OCEAN and the US Navy. On September 2, the US Navy's 40,000-ton-class support ship Wally Schirra sailed into HANHWA OCEAN's Geoje Shipyard for repair. Japanese shipyards are eager to repair American warships too, and Australia plans to provide repair services for America's Virginia-class assault nuclear submarine for the first time this year.
The US military claimed that it has to overcome various challenges in distance, waters, time, and scale in order to be able to operate in the Pacific region. The efforts to establish a military repair network in the Asia Pacific are to better maintain its equipment and war-readiness in the region, which, by the way, will also tie relevant countries tighter onto its war chariot to shape a regional order in America's interests.
