The United States demonstrated its long-range bomber capability amid the coronavirus outbreak by executing flights to Eastern Europe and the South China Sea in recent days.
B-1s flew over Bornholm Island, Denmark, and Warsaw, Poland, and practiced interoperability with Danish and Polish F-16s while a separate bomber mission reached the Pacific after departing from U.S. bases.
The B-1s also demonstrated the importance of NATO partners in the Baltics with flyovers of Latvia and Lithuania.
“Our allies, partners, and adversaries should make no mistake that we are ready, able, and willing to deter and defend when called upon,” said U.S. Air Forces in Europe Cmdr. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian in a statement.
The bomber task force missions demonstrated the U.S. military’s extended deterrence capabilities even amid the coronavirus outbreak, an Air Force global strike command release Monday said, noting that the bombers departed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.
“We think of the U.S. as a power which is visible and reliable in Central and Eastern Europe and able to deter Russia,” Piotr Szymanski, an analyst at Warsaw’s Centre for Eastern Studies told the Washington Examiner.
Szymanski said Russian misinformation campaigns, especially those directed at the Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries, have promoted the falsehood that U.S. and NATO forces are spreading the coronavirus in the region.
“It is it is a kind of constant pressure we are actually used to and the pressure we are dealing with on a daily basis,” he said.
Days earlier, U.S. Strategic Command reported a coordinated mission of six long-range strategic bombers and support aircraft that reached the European and Indo-Pacific theaters.
Two B-2 Spirit bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri; two B-52H Stratofortresses from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota; and two B-52Hs from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, departed May 7, according to a release from the command.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the U.S. to cancel or delay training missions and exercises globally while the Air Force developed new safety protocols to execute during the outbreak.
