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Why The F-22 Is Vital Part 8 And 9
Arlington, Va. (UPI) Mar 24, 2009 The return of Russia as a world power comes after a brief, economically driven absence in the late 1990s. Russia has been through periods of inward retrenchment before. However, with control over massive oil and gas reserves, Russia has re-emerged as a powerhouse. Now that nation is causing friction around its borders on issues from energy supplies to missile defense. New member states of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been particular targets. A series of Cold War antics is enough to worry Europe and the world. The F-22 squadrons at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska already have pictures of their Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptors flying alongside the Russian "Bear" bombers. Russian bombers also buzzed the nuclear-powered super aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. "All Russian air force flights are performed ... in strict accordance with international rules on the use of airspace over neutral waters without violating the borders of other states," said Russian air force spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky, according to a report in Moscow News on April 24. Russia's ambitions are global. Rumblings about deployment of bombers to Venezuela coincided with a sale of 24 Sukhoi Su-30 fighters to President Hugo Chavez. "We do what we can to defend ourselves," said Chavez, who also oversaw a purchase of air defense from Russia via Belarus "just in case the Americans were thinking of doing anything similar to Venezuela," referring to the 2003 U.S. air campaign in Iraq. He was quoted by Jon Lee Anderson in his article, "Fidel's Heir," in The New Yorker, published on June 23. It's hard to say what the future direction of Russian activity will be. Many analysts have noted a certain rustiness in Russian military actions. However, at this rate of activity, the Russian military will regain its form quickly enough. Either way, deterring Russian conventional activity is once again a major task for NATO. Its member nations need credible air defenses and a collective ability to intervene in border regions if necessary. Since 2004, the Brussels-based alliance has been deploying fighters to the former Soviet republic of Latvia, now a NATO member state, for air-defense patrols. The Baltic air policing initiative is part of NATO's quick-reaction capability and is necessary since Latvia, for example, has an air force numbering fewer than 300 people and no air-defense capability of its own. Typically, detachments of four aircraft guard airspace over all three Baltic nations. Recently, U.S. Air Force Boeing F-15E Eagles from the U.S. base at Lakenheath air base in Britain have joined in the rotation.
Part 9: Why the F-22 is needed to deter China in the 21st century There are no plans to base F-22 Raptors in Europe. Still, the time may come when they deploy there often. It's not hard to picture a situation where Russian fighters overwhelm a four-airÂcraft detachment of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Being able to bring highly capable forces to bear would be the essence of deterrence over the Baltic region. Pair border probes with future capabilities and potential intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance degradation, and the case for F-22 availability in a NATO scenario becomes clear. China is a world power, a major trading partner and, without question, a potential military competitor for the United States. With China, the United States may face a decades-long balance between confrontation and cooperation. Conventional deterrence will be a big part of calibrating the balance. For the United States, relying on airpower's conventional deterrent will be a prime tool. China has already demarcated the realms of air, space and cyberspace as arenas for competition and de-emphasized its land forces. In 2004, China's defense white paper stated bluntly: "The army is streamlined by reducing the ordinary troops that are technologically backward while the navy, air force and Second Artillery Force (China's nuclear-weapons unit) are strengthened." Instead, current Chinese military doctrine focuses on local, or regional, war under high-technology conditions, which they define as "a limited war, fought in a restricted geographic area for limited objectives with limited means and a conscious effort to curtail destruction." Rapid defeat of the enemy is the main objective, and the preferred tool is to inflict strategic and operational paralysis or even defeat the enemy with one strike. The Chinese do not much worry about global power projection, stability operations or major land campaigns. Deterring China will be all about providing persistence to make clear that the armed forces of the United States and its allies will not back off until goals are met. Credible deterrence will include the ability to target mobile launches like the one China used to shoot a missile into orbit to destroy its defunct weather satellite. That launch brought home how difficult it could be to track, target and kill mobile launchers. Those mobile launchers could threaten everything from anti-satellite attack to use of nuclear weapons. Mobile launchers are notoriously difficult to pin down. Part 10: The difficulty of locating and destroying mobile missile launchers in real time. (Rebecca Grant, Ph.D., is a senior fellow of the Lexington Institute, a non-profit public-policy research organization based in Arlington, Va.) (United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.) Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links The latest in Military Technology for the 21st century at SpaceWar.com
Why The F-22 Is Vital Part Six
Washington (UPI) Mar 20, 2009 For some nations that are adversaries of the United States, the solution to the challenge of neutralizing U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems is near at hand. Positioning of advanced surface-to-air missiles along border regions can put all current unmanned ISR platforms at risk of being unable to survey crisis areas. |
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