The U.S. Air Force has started moving RQ-4 Global Hawks from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam to Yokota Air Base in eastern Japan, with the first aircraft arriving in late May.
The rotation pulls about 150 personnel, including the 4th Reconnaissance Squadron, into the Kanto Region to improve sortie availability through typhoon season and tighten support for Indo-Pacific ISR tasking. Japan’s own three Global Hawks at Misawa already give the alliance a parallel high-altitude persistent-surveillance layer. The remaining two U.S. aircraft are still awaiting transfer dates.
The shift gives the platform better weather margins and puts U.S. ISR closer to the theatre’s main pressure points.