Pearl Harbor redux? CC draws parallels, urges preparedness

  • Published
  • By Mike Paoli
  • 412th Test Wing Public Affairs Office
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  

Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander, delivered a sobering assessment of China’s growing military capabilities during a recent briefing to community leaders at Antelope Valley College.

Sponsored by Edwards Air Force Base Civilian-Military Support Group and the college, the event focused on the need for robust military-community partnerships in preparation for potential disruption of public services, including Beijing-sourced cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.


Antelope Valley leaders hear about China's aggressive modernization and war readiness efforts from Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander. (Air Force photo by Mike Paoli)

“We’re dealing with some serious challenges overseas,” said U.S. Rep. Vince Fong during opening remarks, citing collusion between China, Russia and Iran. “These are real threats. Making sure that Edwards Air Force Base is prepared and can continue to do the job they do … is critically important.”

Fong cited the devastating 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes, which severely impacted Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, as a stark reminder of the need for resilience and rapid recovery. He stressed the importance of maintaining essential Antelope Valley services like telecommunications, electricity and water.

“How do we stay operational?” he asked. “How do we ensure that the research, development and evaluation of new platforms that support the warfighter overseas…continue? And if a natural disaster were to occur, how do we rebuild?”

Expanding on the preparedness theme, Wickert presented open-source and validated intelligence on the rapid modernization and “staggering” growth of the People’s Liberation Army, adding to the information he provided the Edwards workforce in January. Using Google Earth imagery, he pointed to Dingxin Test and Training Base in the Gobi Desert, China's equivalent of Edwards. The base sits next to a full-scale two-dimensional replica of Taiwan's Taichung International Airport.

“It’s kind of clear what their intention is,” he said.

Elsewhere in the Gobi he highlighted a silhouette of a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier and mockups of U.S. Navy ships positioned on curving railroad tracks, simulating evasive maneuvers against ballistic missiles.

He drew attention to the PLA Navy's recent encirclements, in December and March, of Taiwan for live-fire exercises. The December exercise was the largest naval demonstration since World War II. Wickert warned that these exercises were so close to an invasion simulation, that “For a while there, it looked like the invasion had started.”

Beyond conventional military exercises, Wickert emphasized the looming threat of cyberattacks. He said China has infiltrated the U.S. electrical grid and planted malware on SCADA systems that control electric power communications. He warned that an initial sign of a Taiwan invasion might be widespread power outages and cellular network failures in the U.S., with potential scrambling of bank records, financial data and other information critical to daily local commerce.

He cited the 2003 Northeast Blackout, which affected 55 million people and resulted in fatalities, to illustrate the potential consequences should China leverage such malware during a conflict. “Think about if the electrical grid goes down for six months,” he said.  

Adding to the briefing’s sense of urgency, he said the U.S. has lost its decisive technological advantage over China. He painted a stark contrast to the Cold War era when technological superiority, like stealth and precision-guided munitions, offset the Warsaw Pact’s numerical advantage in military hardware.

“We no longer call the People’s Liberation Army a near-peer adversary,” he said. “They are a peer adversary."


Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 421th Test Wing Commander, informed Antelope Valley leaders, “Just one shipyard in China in one year alone, in 2024, built more tonnage of ships than the U.S. has since the end of World War II.” (Air Force photo by Mike Paoli)

Wickert emphasized the danger of ignoring such clear indicators, drawing parallels to Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell’s prescient warnings about Pearl Harbor’s vulnerability.

In a 1924 report, 17 years prior to the attack, Mitchell predicted the Imperial Japanese Navy would exploit Sunday-morning American behaviors and associated readiness on Oahu. He wrote, “Bombardment attack to be made on Ford’s Island at 7:30 a.m. Attack to be made on Clark Field [in the Philippines] at 10:40 a.m.”

“He was off by 18 minutes,” Wickert said. Mitchell’s Clark Field prediction was off by only 10 minutes.

“If Emperor Hirohito had said, ‘Hey, on Sunday morning at 7:30 we’re gonna bomb Pearl Harbor, we might have listened. What if Chairman Xi told us what he was gonna do? Would we pay attention?”

Wickert then let the local leaders absorb Xi’s 2013 quote instructing the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Bringing the issue closer to home, Wickert stressed the Antelope Valley’s crucial role in national defense and deterrence, particularly Northrop Grumman's B-21 Raider production line at Plant 42, and the aircraft’s test and development facilities at Edwards.

“If I was Chairman Xi and it’s time to go [to war], guess what I’m gonna target first?” he asked. “So like it or not, we’re all in this together.”

Wickert described a recent week-long combat readiness exercise at Edwards that culminated with participation from local municipality emergency managers in a full-day tabletop drill. The exercise simulated attacks on the regional power grid and persistent communication disruptions. He acknowledged the potential for martial law and the need for close military-civilian cooperation under such circumstances.

“The only way to win the next war is to prevent it from happening in the first place,” Wickert said, paraphrasing President Dwight Eisenhower. "That’s why the technology and capability that we are developing up at Edwards, and that this community, the Aerospace Valley, is a part of, is so important.”

Wickert concluded by urging community-wide preparedness, including further dialogue and drills between local governments and the base, to deter conflict.

“If this war happens, it’s going to happen here. It’s going to come to us. This is why we’re having this conversation,” he said. "The more ready that we are, the more likely that we’re going to change Chairman Xi’s calculus.”


U.S. Rep. Vince Fong greets Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander, after Wickert’s readiness and resiliency briefing at Antelope Community College. (Air Force photo by Mike Paoli)

Editor’s Note: Event co-sponsor Edwards Air Force Base Civilian-Military Support Group, or Civ-Mil, collaborates with first sergeants and chaplains to sponsor dinners and other Airman and family morale events. The organization annually donates more than $15,000 to support scholarships and holiday gift-giving programs such as Adopt-A-Family and Angel Tree. The group most recently donated an additional $30,000 to renovate dorm areas, the first-term Airman course facility and the Ellington Airman Leadership School study center. Learn more about Civ-Mil at https://eafbcivmil.org/.