On the small island of Tinian, lost in the vastness of the western Pacific Ocean, the US military is busily rebuilding infrastructure that has not been used since World War II. Satellite images taken by Planet Labs between December 2023 and January 2025 reveal the scale of the work: about 20 square meters of runways and other facilities built in the mid-XNUMXth century have been put in order. The process is part of a strategic plan by the US to strengthen its presence in a region where tensions are growing due to a possible conflict with China.

The history of the airfield on Tinian goes back to the Second World War. It was here that the B-29 Superfortress bombers were based, which played a decisive role in the attacks on Japan. The most famous of these operations were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Then, from the airfield North Field, the Enola Gay and Bockscar aircraft took off, forever inscribing Tinian in military history. After the end of the war, the base was abandoned: the last units of the US Air Force left the island in 1946, and the jungle gradually swallowed up the once busy runways and hangars. However, today the site is gaining a second life, becoming an important link in American military strategy.

The current airfield rehabilitation effort is part of the Pentagon’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, designed to make the military more flexible and resilient in the face of potential conflict. The goal is to disperse military assets across smaller, more remote bases to make it harder for an adversary to strike. Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands, is ideally positioned for this task due to its strategic location: approximately 3000 kilometers from China and 2400 kilometers from the Philippines, with a major base in Guam nearby. The rebuilt airfield could become a key logistics hub, enabling rapid deployment of forces in the event of an escalation in the Indo-Pacific region.

In 2024, the U.S. Air Force awarded Fluor Corporation a $409 million contract to complete the work over a five-year period. By early 2025, much of the area had been cleared of brush, runways restored, and associated infrastructure strengthened. Progress will be even more noticeable in the coming months, according to Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces. The funds for the reconstruction are partly allocated from the Pentagon's 2025 budget, which has about $4,8 billion allocated for Pacific projects. The high cost is explained by the complexity of logistics: delivering materials and labor to a remote island is significantly more expensive than on the continental United States.