The U.S. Air Force has just done something it almost never does: it has put F-22 Raptors on a runway in Japan.

A package of Raptors landed at Kadena Air Base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa earlier this week, the most senior officials at Pacific Air Forces have confirmed. The deployment is officially temporary. The reason for it is not subtle. Kadena’s home-station F-15C Eagles, which spent fifty years standing alert against any Chinese aircraft heading for Taiwan or southern Japan, are gone. Their replacement — the brand-new F-15EX Eagle II — has not arrived. Until it does, the gap is being plugged with the most expensive air-superiority fighter ever built.

It is a striking move. Raptors are kept on a short leash, both because they are scarce and because every hour they fly in the open eats into their useful life. To send them to Kadena is to admit two things at the same time: the F-15EX delay is bad enough to need a real fix, and the situation in the Western Pacific is serious enough that the Pentagon is willing to spend Raptor flight hours to fill the gap.

Why Kadena matters

Kadena is not a normal air base. It is the largest U.S. Air Force base in the Pacific, the western anchor of the entire INDOPACOM network, and — crucially — the closest American fighter base to mainland China and Taiwan. The runway is just under 800 kilometres from the Chinese coast. Anything based at Kadena is part of the immediate defensive crust of Japan and the first wave of any Western response to a fight over Taiwan.

Until 2022, that crust was made of fifty-four F-15Cs of the 18th Wing. Those airframes had flown Pacific alert duty for half a century. They were also exhausted. The Air Force retired them in waves, on the assumption that they would be replaced one-for-one by the brand-new F-15EX. That replacement has not happened on schedule. Boeing’s production line has been slow to ramp up, the EX has had its share of teething issues, and the planned Kadena delivery date has slipped — for the second time.

The cost of the gap

An hour of F-22 flight time costs roughly 70,000 dollars. An F-15C, when it was still flying, cost about 30,000. Whatever the budget figure works out to over a deployment that may run six months or more, this is not the cheap solution. It is the only solution available right now that puts a credible air-superiority fighter at Kadena.

Other contenders were considered. F-35As from CONUS could have rotated in, and Marine F-35Bs are already in theatre at Iwakuni. But the F-22 still does something no other American fighter does: it owns the air-to-air fight at every altitude and every aspect against anything China can put up. As long as the EX is late, the Pentagon will pay Raptor money to keep that capability over Okinawa.

The bigger picture

This is the latest in a string of decisions that point in the same direction: the Pacific is the priority theatre, and the U.S. Air Force is rearranging its highest-end assets accordingly. F-22s have been rotating through Tinian, Andersen on Guam, and now Kadena. F-35As have moved permanently to Eielson in Alaska and to Misawa in northern Japan. The B-21 is making its first overseas appearances. The bomber task forces have shifted west.

For Beijing, the message is straightforward. Even with the EX delay, even with the F-15Cs gone, the runway at Kadena is not unguarded. It just costs more.

When the Eagles return

Kadena is currently scheduled to receive its first F-15EX squadron in 2027, with a second to follow by the end of the decade. Until then, expect Raptor rotations and possibly F-35As to fill the slots. The Air Force has not said how long this particular deployment will last, but if recent practice is any guide, it will run at least until the next rotation lands behind it.

For now, the world’s most expensive fighter is the alert bird at the most important air base in the Pacific. Make of that what you will.

Sources: Air & Space Forces Magazine, Pacific Air Forces public release, U.S. Air Force.