U.S. Air Force in the Pacific: Organisation, Basing, Fleet & Recent Exercises

Summer Special 2025

Aviation News July 26, 2025 -Stretching from the U.S. West Coast to the east coast of Africa, the Indo-Pacific is the United States Air Force’s largest area of responsibility. Day-to-day airpower there is generated by Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), one of the USAF’s nine major commands, whose task is to deter aggression, defend the homeland and, if required, prevail in conflict across more than 100 million sq mi of air and sea.

Command structure

Headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Hawaii, PACAF employs about 45,000 uniformed and civilian personnel. Its combat power is organised under three numbered air forces:

NAF	Headquarters	Primary operating focus
5th Air Force	Yokota AB, Japan	Japan & Mariana Islands
7th Air Force	Osan AB, Republic of Korea	Korean Peninsula
11th Air Force	Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska	Arctic & North Pacific

Each NAF commands fighter, air-lift, refuelling and support wings such as the 18th Wing (Kadena, Japan), 36th Wing (Andersen, Guam) and 354th Fighter Wing (Eielson, Alaska).

Base network

To sustain a constant, sovereign presence, PACAF operates a lattice of main operating bases and dispersal sites often referred to as the “Strategic Triangle” (Hawaii–Guam–Alaska) plus key bases in Japan and Korea. Principal installations include Hickam (15th Wing), Andersen, Eielson, Elmendorf-Richardson, Kadena, Misawa, Osan, Kunsan and Yokota. These hubs are being hardened and linked to dozens of civilian and allied airfields under the Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, allowing fighters and tankers to “hub-and-spoke” rapidly across the theatre.

Aircraft and ongoing modernisation

Roughly 340 fighter and attack aircraft are permanently assigned to PACAF, with another 100 rotating through Guam and Japan on a habitual basis.

Core types include:

• F-35A Lightning II – now on semi-permanent rotation to Kadena AB as two USAF squadrons replace the outgoing F-15C/D fleet
• F-22A Raptor – 3rd Wing, Elmendorf
• F-15E Strike Eagle / F-15EX Eagle II – rotational at Kadena and slated for permanent basing from 2026 onward.
• F-16C/D Fighting Falcon – Misawa and Kunsan
• KC-135R & KC-46A refuellers, C-17A and C-130J air-lifters
• Rotational B-52H and, increasingly, B-2A bomber task forces operating from Guam.

Behind the hardware, the command is reinforcing a “speak-up” safety culture and accelerating predictive maintenance analytics, mirroring wider USAF reforms.

Recent and upcoming exercises

Exercise	Dates (2024-25)	Focus & Highlights
Cope North 25	Feb 5-21 2025	2,300 personnel, USAF-JASDF-RAAF 5th-gen tactics at Andersen AFB
Pacific Paladin 25	Feb 24-28 2025	First ACE field-training module for senior NCOs at Hickam, sharpening leadership for contested ops
Valiant Shield 24	Jun 7-18 2024	Multinational, multi-domain joint force integration across Guam, CNMI and Palau
Elephant Walk (Beverly Herd) Kadena	May 9 2025	53 USAF & USN aircraft plus Patriot batteries in the largest mass-launch drill ever in Japan, underscoring rapid-generation capability
Northern Edge 25	Aug 14-28 2025 (planned)	High-end joint fires exercise in Alaska validating Arctic-Pacific linkages

These events showcase key operational trends: dispersed basing, fifth-generation integration with allies, and seamless link-ups between air, maritime, space and cyber assets—capabilities central to deterring coercion by peer competitors in the Western Pacific.

Outlook

Over the next five years PACAF will field F-15EX squadrons in Japan, add more F-35s at Misawa, and expand ACE logistics pre-positioning throughout Micronesia. Together with continuous bomber presence and allied integration, the United States Air Force in the Pacific remains a pivotal element of the region’s security architecture—ready to fly, fight and win tonight while preparing for the conflicts of tomorrow.

Photos Jeroen Vogelaar