TOKYO — U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 bombers flew with Japanese fighter jets over the Sea of Japan Wednesday in a joint drill staged a day after China and Russia sent a large bomber patrol near Japan and South Korea, Tokyo said. Japan’s Defense Ministry said the mission was designed to signal allied resolve and deter any unilateral change to the regional status quo by force, officials said Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025.
B-52 bombers lead an allied show of force
The two B-52 bombers, part of the U.S. strategic bomber presence in the Pacific, flew alongside three Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35 stealth fighters and three F-15 air-superiority jets in tightly choreographed formations over international waters. According to a detailed report by Reuters, the flight was the first visible U.S. show of military airpower in the area since China began large-scale drills around Japan last week and was intended to confirm the readiness of both U.S. forces and the Self-Defense Forces.
The joint drill came less than 24 hours after two Russian Tu-95s and two Chinese H-6 bombers, escorted by fighter jets, traced a long route from the Sea of Japan into the western Pacific, prompting Japan to scramble its own aircraft. A separate Reuters account of the joint patrol described it as a deliberate show of force aimed at Japan, with Tokyo’s defence minister calling the China–Russia flight a “serious concern” for national security as the bombers passed between Okinawa and Miyako.
Tensions were already elevated after Japan accused a Chinese carrier-based fighter of locking its targeting radar on Japanese F-15s near Okinawa last weekend, a move Tokyo condemned as “dangerous and unwarranted.” The government lodged a formal protest and warned that repeated close encounters, layered on top of large bomber patrols and drills by B-52 bombers and other strategic aircraft, increase the risk of miscalculation in crowded skies.
B-52 bombers anchor a long-running pattern of drills
For planners in Tokyo and Washington, Wednesday’s mission is the latest entry in a years-long effort to normalize operations in which B-52 bombers integrate closely with Japanese forces. In April 2023, two B-52s, KC-135 tankers and F-35s teamed up with Japan’s F-15s over the Sea of Japan in an April 2023 U.S.-Japan bomber exercise that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said demonstrated “consistent and capable deterrence options” available to the alliance.
The pattern stretches back at least to 2019, when two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress aircraft trained with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and the U.S. Navy over the East China Sea in a mission reported by The Diplomat. More recently, in July 2025, Japanese and South Korean fighters escorted B-52H aircraft in a trilateral bomber flight that underscored their ability to respond together to regional crises, according to U.S. Forces Korea.
China and Russia insist their patrols are routine and part of an annual cooperation plan, arguing that they help “safeguard regional peace and stability” even as neighboring states scramble jets to shadow them. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, however, see the flights—especially when mirrored by U.S. B-52 bombers flying with allied fighters—as pressure campaigns that test response times, probe air-defense networks and send political messages as much as military ones.
As B-52 bombers, Chinese and Russian bombers and regional fighters increasingly share the same airspace, officials on all sides are warning that crowded skies leave less room for error. For now, the latest U.S.–Japan drill is intended to reassure allies that the alliance is ready, but every new flight adds another turn in a cycle of signaling that critics say could one day be misread as the opening move of a real crisis.
