Joint air drills carried out in an effort to simulate high-end combat operations against Chinese fighter aircraft
\n NEVADA
\nThe United States, Britain and Australia carried out joint air drills on Wednesday over the Nevada desert and beyond as part of an effort to simulate high-end combat operations against Chinese fighter aircraft and air defences.
\nReuters accompanied British forces for several hours during the US-hosted, three-week-long Red Flag exercises aboard Britain\u2019s KC-2 Voyager refuelling tanker aircraft, which on Wednesday supplied fuel for US and British fighter jets.
\nUS Air Force Colonel Jared J Hutchinson, commander of the 414th Combat Training Squadron that runs Red Flag, said the annual drills were not tied to any recent events. On Saturday, a US fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, hiking tensions.
\n\u201c(China is) just the pacing challenge that we train to so that we\u2019re ready … We think that if we\u2019re ready for China, we\u2019re ready for anybody,\u201d Hutchinson said, citing US policy.
\nAt the heart of the drills was addressing the vast distances that the United States, Britain and Australia would contend with when operating across the Pacific, and improving inter-operability of the three countries\u2019 air forces.
\nFor the crew aboard the Royal Air Force\u2019s Voyager, that means serving as a kind of gas station in the skies – providing air-to-air refueling of fighter aircraft carrying out the simulated mission.
\nAir Commodore John Lyle, commander of the RAF\u2019s Air Mobility Force, told Reuters the mission during the Red Flag drills would simulate bringing the air forces into \u201can area where there has been an invasion by a hostile country.\u201d
\n\u201cSo our role will be to support the force to effectively proceed into the area that\u2019s been occupied and to undertake targeting of key assets to allow us to degrade the enemy\u2019s capabilities,\u201d Lyle said, without mentioning China by name, or identifying what simulated area had been invaded.
\nThe Pentagon has voiced growing concern in recent years about pressure by Beijing on self-ruled Taiwan, an island China sees as a breakaway province.
\nBeyond the tanker aircraft, Britain also flew Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets in the exercises. Australia contributed EA-18G Growler aircraft, according to data provided by Red Flag organizers.
\nThe US government has identified China as the U.S. military\u2019s top strategic priority, even as it devotes billions of dollars to support Kyiv in repelling invading Russian forces.
\nSpeaking last week in Washington, US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns also cautioned the United States knew \u201cas a matter of intelligence\u201d that Xi had ordered his military to be ready to conduct an invasion of self-governed Taiwan by 2027.
\n\u201cNow, that does not mean that he\u2019s decided to conduct an invasion in 2027, or any other year, but it\u2019s a reminder of the seriousness of his focus and his ambition,\u201d Burns told an event at Georgetown University in Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joint air drills carried out in an effort to simulate high-end combat operations against Chinese fighter aircraft NEVADA The United States, Britain and Australia carried out joint air drills on Wednesday over the Nevada desert and beyond as part of an effort to simulate high-end combat operations against Chinese fighter aircraft and air defences. Reuters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-312764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n