The US Air Force's big plan to spread out and take on China may actually make things easier for Beijing

• The US military is making plans to dodge China's growing arsenal of long-range missiles.
• For the Air Force, a key part of the plan is to spread jets and airmen across bases in the Pacific.
• But using more bases creates more logistical and defensive needs, a recent think-tank report found.

With US airbases in the Pacific under potential threat from Chinese missiles, one obvious defense is dispersal. Rather than concentrating aircraft and supplies at a few central locations, spread them out among multiple airfields to make it harder and more costly to target all of them.