Russia understands this signalingand dislikes it intensely and expresses that
dislike regularly.
Despite the fact that as Peter Leighton
has explained in these pages, the u.s
military undertakes very long-distance
strategic bomber missions, at
considerable cost with questionable
returns. They do make good press copy
after all one rarely see the
submarines and underground missile silos
that are the other two legs of the
nuclear triad.
Indeed in 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his air
force to restart long-range bomber
patrols to demonstrate Russia's restored
military prowess.
The Russian Military has frequently
dispatched bombers for training and
messaging purposes. Especially in the
northeast pacific along the Alaskan and Canadian Coasts and the Norwegian and North Sea regions. Recent Russian bomber
flights over Belarus in a show of
support for that country and its ties to Russia again illustrate the visibility
of such missions.
Russia has routinely flown 222 strategic
bombers over the black sea, with the
official commentary being only that the Russian Military performs these flights
in international airspace and in
accordance with standard aviation
procedures.
One of the best examples of this type of
show of force event are the bomber task
force missions that the US Air Force
has flown since 2018.
As power
projection demonstrations in the
european theater, the stated purposes of
which are to demonstrate NATO solidarity. Enhance readiness and provide training
opportunities aimed at enhancing
interoperability for all participating
air crews from the US and NATO Allies to
demonstrate commitment to our allies and
partners. All while providing a clear
deterrence message to any adversary.
Since 2019 the u.s air force has
conducted six bomber task force
operations, all involving multiple
sorties by B-1 or B-52 over the Black Sea and NATO literal countries, with the
stated purpose being to show that
partners such as ukraine are included in
the countries to be reassured or whose
forces are to be made interoperable with
those of NATO.
But Russian media
portrayed these flights as threatening
and destabilizing and feature these
stories on both domestic and
international channels. On several of these missions, the U.S bombers were intercepted by Russian Fighters that on occasion conducted
these encounters in an unsafe manner
again indicating the risk inherent in
such meetings.
The U.S Air Force utilizes fighters
under the theater security package
concept to enhance deterrence posture, increase the readiness and
responsiveness of u.s forces in Europe, support the collective defense and
security of NATO Allies and bolster
security and capacity of U.S partners.
In
the black sea context, the u.s air force
has rotated several packages through Bulgaria and Romania. The purpose being
to achieve basic interoperability and to
shore up NATO's black sea flank.
In
addition U.S Air Force aircraft have
operated in ukraine on training
exercises, during one such event special
operations CV-22 Ospreys flew over cube.
