What is going on at NATO’s Allied Air Command?
I ask that question in light of two successful Russian operations against NATO and the U.S. Air Forces in Europe last Friday. In both incidents, Russian navy fighter jets were able to hold U.S. B-52 bombers at risk. In one, Russia was able to successfully penetrate a NATO member state’s sovereign air space and thus also NATO’s air defense network.
The first case came with the Russian interception of a B-52 flight over the Baltic Sea. Part of an exercise last Friday in which B-52s overflew all 30 alliance nations, NATO’s allied air commander should have anticipated that this flight was at high risk of Russian interception. That’s because the Russians especially dislike NATO flights near their Kaliningrad enclave (wedged between Poland and Lithuania) and their western mainland border. But for whatever reason, this B-52 flight was not escorted by NATO fighters. Unsurprisingly, the Russians took advantage. They launched an Su-27 fighter jet out of Kaliningrad against the B-52. That Su-27 then chased the B-52 as it flew toward Denmark’s Bornholm island in the Baltic Sea. According to NATO, the Su-27 then “followed the B52 well into Danish airspace over the island, committing a significant violation of airspace of a NATO nation.” NATO says that Danish quick reaction alert F-16 fighter jets were then launched from their mainland base at Vojens but that the Su-27 left before they arrived.
It’s important to guard against being an armchair general. But there really are some extraordinary NATO failures here.
At the strategic level, NATO’s integrated air defense network and the sovereign airspace of a NATO ally has been breached with impunity. Ridiculously, however, NATO’s allied air commander (also the head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa), Gen. Jeff Harrigian, responded to Russia’s incursion by claiming that “we remain vigilant, ready and prepared to secure NATO airspace 24/7.” Why is Harrigian making that claim when the Russians have just proved it to be untrue?
This also evinces a major tactical failure. Assuming a standard quick reaction alert scramble time of 10-15 minutes, and the F-16’s top speed, it should have taken no more than 25 minutes for the Danish fighters to travel the 350 kilometers to Bornholm. Considering that the Su-27 would have been tracked by NATO radars as soon as it launched from Kaliningrad, there’s reason to think the Danish air force should have got to Bornholm in time to stop the incursion. The Polish Air Force also has a Mig-29 squadron at Malbork, just 65 kilometers from Kaliningrad. So if the Danish were unprepared, why weren’t the Polish launched? This is the nuts and bolts of NATO air defense.
Regardless, considering the obvious sensitivity with which Russia was going to view this B-52 flight, NATO should have had an escort alongside it from the start. If European allies didn’t want to provide that escort, which is an unfortunate possibility, the U.S. Air Force should have utilized its F-16 fighter squadron out of Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. Any argument against escort fighters on the fear of inflaming tensions is also fallacious. Russia has been escalating over the past few months. At the very least, NATO fighter squadrons should have been on high alert for immediate counter-intercept launch. In short, the otherwise excellent Danish and Polish air forces have questions to answer. Germany, which is just 120 kilometers from Bornholm, need not answer. Chancellor Angela Merkel has already done so via her disregard for defense spending and sympathy for Russia’s Nord Stream II pipeline.
But it gets worse. The Russians played another even more dangerous game on Friday.
During a different B-52 flight over the Black Sea near Ukraine, a separate Russian Su-27 intercepted the B-52. As with the Baltic Sea interception, Russian sensitivities over the Black Sea area should have motivated NATO to send up an escort for the B-52. It did not. And what followed was a Russian interception, recorded by the B-52 crew, so dangerous it risked a mid-air collision or wake turbulence catastrophe. The five Americans on that B-52 might have died. It is a tribute to American engineering that the B-52 bomber remains an Air Force staple 65 years after it first entered service. But it cannot survive a collision with an Su-27.
This is an absurd situation.
Aggressive Russian interceptions of U.S. aircraft in Europe have been an escalating concern for months now. Someone should ask Harrigian and Maj. Gen. Anders Rex of the Danish air force, what they are doing. But the questions also need to reach higher. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Tod Wolters has been at his stunning official residence, Chateau Gendebien, in Mons, Belgium, for 15 months now. Defense Secretary Mark Esper should ask him what’s going on. If Esper does not, no one is likely to. After all, the U.S. military is very good at holding officers up to the rank of captains and colonels to account. It is not so good at holding admirals and generals to account.
On Monday, the Air Force flew a radar sensing intelligence aircraft past Kaliningrad and circuits near the Russian mainland near Saint Petersburg. It’s unclear whether that aircraft had a fighter escort. But the next flight and those that follow in these areas should have escorts. And if NATO commanders can’t figure that out, they should be replaced.
