By The Air Force is sending the F-22 Raptor to Europe as further reassurance to NATO allies of U.S. support in deterring further Russian aggression, Secretary Deborah Lee James said Aug. 24.
“Russia’s military activity in the Ukraine continues to be of great concern to us and to our European allies,” James said. She agreed with Defense Secretary Ash Carter who last week said the U.S. approach to Russia “needs to be strong and it needs to be balanced.”
“Rotational forces and training exercises help us maintain our strong and balanced approach, and we will certainly be continuing these in the future,” she said. “For the Air Force, an F-22 deployment is certainly on the strong side of the coin.”
James said the service would “very soon” deploy F-22s to Europe in support of “combatant commander requirements and as part of the European reassurance initiative.” It will be the F-22 twin-engine, fifth-generation air superiority fighter’s inaugural training deployment. The jets are being flown over Iraq and Syria in the ongoing air campaign against Islamic State militants.
U.S. airmen will train with allied counterparts “across Europe,” but James would not disclose where or exactly when the deployment would occur, citing operational security.
The Army already has about 30,000 soldiers in Europe, many of which have been mobilized to perform exercises with troops from allied nations bordering Russia.
Last spring President Obama authorized the deployment of four U.S. parachute infantry companies from Vicenza, Italy, to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. Another 300 paratroopers are in Ukraine, training that country’s Ministry of Interior troops, Hodges said. That mission will continue through November, when a decision will be made whether to begin training conventional Ukrainian soldiers.
To support those troops, the Army is in the midst of stationing enough equipment and vehicles in various European locations to support at least one armored brigade combat team, Hodges said. The equipment, which includes armored vehicles, artillery and tanks, should be in place by the end of the year.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh would not confirm that the F-22 deployment was in direct response to Russia’s saber rattling in Eastern Europe. The deployment is “just a continuation of deploying it everywhere we can to train with our partners.”
“We’re going to be doing a training deployment, we’ll operate with a number of different air forces,” he said. “We’ll get the F-22 into facilities that we would potentially use in a conflict in Europe. … This is a natural evolution in bringing our best air-to-air capability in to train with partners who have been long and trusted ones.”
Welsh said the aircraft were primarily deploying for an international exercise in which its capabilities would be matched up with other advanced fighters like the Eurofighter Typhoon.
“We have aircraft with very advanced capabilities that we need, and they would like, for us to be able to interoperate in multiple type scenarios,” Welsh said. “Being able to train side-by-side with them … is really, really important to us.”
