Speaking at a Pentagon news conference Saturday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and their Japanese counterparts announced a host of historic agreements between the two countries. Among the actions are movement of an estimated 7,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam over the next six years, more training opportunities for Japanese forces in the US, and an overall realignment of Japanese forces in Japan to make it easier to work with similar American forces. Also included in the agreements is the move of some USAF F-15 flight exercises from Kadena AB, Okinawa, to five Japan Air Self-Defense Forces bases outside the Japanese prefecture, the Japan Times reported.
Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii is trialing novel energy technology to provide electrical power and hydrogen fuel in the kind of isolated and austere outposts the Air Force will need in the Pacific theater for its new Agile Combat Employment way of warfare.