plawolf
Lieutenant General
This is a great move because it forces Japan and the West to attack their very own arguments if they oppose China's ADIZ since they both have huge ADIZ of their own.
This move has put Japan in a bad position both politically and militarily. Many have already covered the political challenge for Tokyo already, so I won't rehash what has already been said, but will focus more on the military challenge and difficulties this will cause Japan.
The most significant headache this presents Japan is whether or not to acknowledge and obey the Chinese ADIZ. If they don't acknowledge it and send anything airborne into disputed waters/airspace, the PLAAF is going to scramble fighters to intercept and that by default puts PLAAF fighters in those very disputed airspace. But they would only be there in the first place because Japanese planes went in first and did not obey China's ADIZ rules. Try as they may, even the most anti-China spin doctor is going to have a hard time make that out as a deliberate provocation by China.
OTOH, if Japan accepts China's ADIZ to follow its rules to avoid triggering PLAAF scrambles into disputed territory, that in itself is a win for China because it would in effect end Japanese air patrols over those disputed islands and waters and in effect roll back Japan's own ADIZ back beyond China's, which in effect gives China control over the airspace over all disputed territory.
In a way, this is Japan's own oversized ADIZ coming back to bite them in their butts because the outer edges of Japan's ADIZ are far closer to China than Japan. That means Japanese fighters have to fly further than Chinese planes.
On top of that, the Japanese have to deal with the reality that they only have a tiny number of upgraded F15s that are in the same league as the latest new built PLAAF Flanker derivatives and not all that many F15s left even if you add in all the non-upgraded F15s, all of which are getting long in the tooth as it is.
Quite simply, if Japan lets a 'interceptor war' develop whereby both sizes intercepts everything the other side sends into the overlapping ADIZs, then Japan losses from numbers alone since the PLAAF have far more jets available. The informal increased PLAAF activity in the East China Sea these past year or two have already put server strain on Japan's small F15 fleet. A formalized ADIZ would only see PLAAF activity increase, and Japan would have to follow suit if it wants to avoid being seen as backing down.
As I have already touched upon before, if Japan tries to go toe-to-toe with China on intercepts, it will be forced to use a smaller forced of far older planes that have to fly further to get to the overlapping ADIZs. Never mind mock dogfighting, just getting there and back will eat up the remaining airframe hours left on Japanese F15s in no time, with correspondingly higher fatigue on the Japanese pilots, who may have to do two or three or more times as many intercepts as their PLAAF counterparts.
The biggest danger I can realistically see with this move is that a Japanese F15 breaking up during a mock dogfight because of airframe fatigue and his wingman mistaking that for him him having been shot down by the Chinese.
This move has put Japan in a bad position both politically and militarily. Many have already covered the political challenge for Tokyo already, so I won't rehash what has already been said, but will focus more on the military challenge and difficulties this will cause Japan.
The most significant headache this presents Japan is whether or not to acknowledge and obey the Chinese ADIZ. If they don't acknowledge it and send anything airborne into disputed waters/airspace, the PLAAF is going to scramble fighters to intercept and that by default puts PLAAF fighters in those very disputed airspace. But they would only be there in the first place because Japanese planes went in first and did not obey China's ADIZ rules. Try as they may, even the most anti-China spin doctor is going to have a hard time make that out as a deliberate provocation by China.
OTOH, if Japan accepts China's ADIZ to follow its rules to avoid triggering PLAAF scrambles into disputed territory, that in itself is a win for China because it would in effect end Japanese air patrols over those disputed islands and waters and in effect roll back Japan's own ADIZ back beyond China's, which in effect gives China control over the airspace over all disputed territory.
In a way, this is Japan's own oversized ADIZ coming back to bite them in their butts because the outer edges of Japan's ADIZ are far closer to China than Japan. That means Japanese fighters have to fly further than Chinese planes.
On top of that, the Japanese have to deal with the reality that they only have a tiny number of upgraded F15s that are in the same league as the latest new built PLAAF Flanker derivatives and not all that many F15s left even if you add in all the non-upgraded F15s, all of which are getting long in the tooth as it is.
Quite simply, if Japan lets a 'interceptor war' develop whereby both sizes intercepts everything the other side sends into the overlapping ADIZs, then Japan losses from numbers alone since the PLAAF have far more jets available. The informal increased PLAAF activity in the East China Sea these past year or two have already put server strain on Japan's small F15 fleet. A formalized ADIZ would only see PLAAF activity increase, and Japan would have to follow suit if it wants to avoid being seen as backing down.
As I have already touched upon before, if Japan tries to go toe-to-toe with China on intercepts, it will be forced to use a smaller forced of far older planes that have to fly further to get to the overlapping ADIZs. Never mind mock dogfighting, just getting there and back will eat up the remaining airframe hours left on Japanese F15s in no time, with correspondingly higher fatigue on the Japanese pilots, who may have to do two or three or more times as many intercepts as their PLAAF counterparts.
The biggest danger I can realistically see with this move is that a Japanese F15 breaking up during a mock dogfight because of airframe fatigue and his wingman mistaking that for him him having been shot down by the Chinese.
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