The U.S. Air Force is working on a test program with Japan to establish a joint maintenance center that will perform repairs on aircraft operated by both nations—creating a “deterrent effect that will make adversaries think twice,” a top general said.
For the past few months, the Air Force Sustainment Center has been exploring ways to expand depot-level maintenance beyond the continental U.S. and get it closer to the fight, in line with the Pentagon’s Regional Sustainment Framework plan to tap into the allies’ maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities, particularly for shared weapons systems.
The Air Force’s part of the initiative, dubbed GENUS (Global Enterprise Network for Universal Sustainment), has led to talks and visits to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Guam, and Alaska, said Lt. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins, commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center, during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on March 13.
But Japan offers a particularly intriguing partnership given past interoperability efforts and common platforms.
“We believe that Japan is a prime candidate to begin this journey,” Hawkins said. “One example of how this has been done successfully is our support center at Kadena… We feel that the ecosystem is rich to build on that success and scale it accordingly.”
The 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Asia-Pacific, is home to more than 2,300 aircraft maintainers in its 18th Maintenance Group. Located on Okinawa, just 200 miles from Taiwan, the base currently hosts a rotation of fighters, along with other aircraft
“We have actually put some ideas in motion as to how we can run a successful pilot using a basket of commodities for aircraft that we fly together,” added Hawkins.
USAF and the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force operate several of the same aircraft types—F-15 and F-35 fighters, C-130 transports, and KC-46 tankers.
By leveraging Japan’s maintenance capabilities and sharing its own, the Air Force hopes to keep its aircraft more ready and able to respond quickly to crises.
“When it comes to revitalizing the defense industrial base and re-establishing deterrence … we believe GENUS is right in the middle of that,” Hawkins said. “We can resolve the tyranny of distance problem, resolve the contested logistics problem and resolve the time challenge, we can actually create a deterrent effect that will make our adversaries think twice.”
A joint MRO center could also address supply chain issues, as both countries frequently face shortages of spare parts for aircraft repairs, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Leonard J. Kosinski, former director for logistics for the Joint Staff.
“If we can combine those together into what we call in the Joint Staff ‘forward pre-positioned operating stock,’ this will, collectively, keep the things in need available to use, maintain, replenish,” he said.
For Tokyo, the agreement could help revitalize the country’s shrinking defense industry. Japan’s long-standing export controls have historically confined its defense companies to domestic needs. The country aims to expand MRO services going forward and integrate into global market, officials said during the CSIS event.
The Navy currently operates a comparable sustainment center called the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center, in Yokosuka, a port city just south of Tokyo. The facility provides ship repair, modernization, and support services to the service’s 7th fleet and Naval vessels across the region.
The Air Force is also exploring interoperability and shared maintenance on the F-35 with European allies—Norwegian personnel serviced two F-35s without any U.S. supervision last April, a historic first.