Senior Airman Christopher Collins marshals a B-1B Lancer at Misawa Air Base, Japan, April 18, 2025. (Emma Anderson/U.S. Air Force)
The official voice of North Korea’s authoritarian regime on Friday denounced the recent appearance of Air Force long-range bombers in Japan as a “vicious change” and a “threat to regional security.”
An unsigned commentary published by the Korean Central News Agency referred to the B-1B Lancer as the “notorious Swan of Death,” and Misawa Air Base, Japan, as its nest.
The Air Force announced April 17 that an undisclosed number of Lancers had arrived at Misawa as part of a rotational bomber task force mission. Air Force photographs posted online show at least two bombers had arrived in Japan.
The Air Force did not disclose how long the rotation, the first U.S. bomber deployment to Japan in recent memory, would last.
The Lancers, of the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, arrived to “train and operate” with U.S. allies and partners in the region, according to an Air Force news release Tuesday.
KCNA took issue with that claim, saying the Lancers’ presence increased the level of confrontation in the region.
“This is not a temporary deployment for joint exercise or to show force to neighbor countries, but a significant military move as it is a long-term deployment of the U.S. strategic asset in the center of the Asia-Pacific area,” the commentary said.
“Stationing the B-1B in Japan shows U.S.’ vicious change, since the launch base was usually in Guam using its armed force in the Asia-Pacific region,” it continued. “This a clear developmental threat to the regional security.”
Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean 1,891 miles south of Misawa, is a forward operating location for U.S. bombers such as the Lancer, B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress, although they are not permanently stationed there.
The Air Force since January 2018 has routinely flown its bombers around the world on task force missions from bases in the United States. The deployments have continued regularly since 2020.
Lancers have appeared over South Korea, mostly recently in an April 15 show of force by a pair of them escorted by South Korean F-35 and F-16 fighters and U.S. F-16s.
“The recent military move of the U.S. and [South Korea] is an open threat to the security of our state and a grave provocation that raises the military tension in the region to an extreme dangerous level,” an unidentified spokesperson for North Korea’s Defense Ministry said April 17 on KCNA.
The U.S. and South Korea often respond with airpower displays to North Korean acts such as ballistic missile tests. KCNA in turn describes the flyovers as hostile acts.
“For a long time, the U.S. has been crazy about pressuring regional countries and expanding military intervention, utilizing strategic bombers and other strategic assets in places like Japan and South Korea,” the news agency wrote Friday.
“This year alone, the U.S. launched B-1Bs three times over the Korean Peninsula and held joint aerial exercises, further escalating military confrontation into a more dangerous conflict situation,” the commentary said.
