Britain’s Royal Air Force To Bring Back Cold War-Style Exercises

July 22, 2021 (EIRNS)—The British Empire is setting up the conditions for wars against Russia and China, and the geopolitically demented leadership of the U.S. military is willingly falling into the trap. The latest example if this is remarks by Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, chief of the Royal Air Force, in which he told the Telegraph that he wants to bring Cold War-style training exercises back to the RAF, to include deploying Typhoon fighter jets to scattered airfields, and even practicing operating the jets from highways, as was done during the Cold War. Wigston said fixed RAF bases would be as vulnerable to a surprise attack in any future conflict as U.S. forces had been when the Japanese struck in December 1941. “We’ll be re-learning how to disperse,” he said, further stating that if “the arsenal [of advanced cruise missiles] Putin has been bragging about” were moved to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad “we’d be in range.” He claimed that the “trajectory” of Russia over the last 15 years is forcing military leaders to be innovative in the face of an increasing threat.

New Russian missile and air defense systems, combined with a willingness to use force, has prompted the move, Wigston claimed, repeating all of the unproven or exaggerated allegations against Russia. “They’ve murdered people on the streets of Britain and annexed part of Europe. They’ve got the threat systems. We are concerned about them,” he said. “In the worst-case scenario, things we hold dear—like national infrastructure—will be in range of Russian missiles.” Moving modern equipment like the latest cruise missiles to Kaliningrad—the small piece of Russian territory sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania—would be a “step up the ladder of escalation,” the head of the Royal Air Force said.

Joining the warmongering rhetoric against Russia was U.S. Navy Adm. Robert P. Burke, commander of U.S. naval Forces Europe-Africa, who called Russia’s actions an effort to bully neighbors into accepting the narrative that no other nations have the right to be in the Black Sea, in a July 20 event live-streamed by the U.S. Navy Memorial. “When a strike aircraft overflies a destroyer at 100 feet altitude and right over top, our [commanding officers] are making a judgment call of whether that strike fighter is on an attack profile or not,” Burke said July 20. “There is a tactical risk involved here, that tactical risk could turn into a strategic issue, and that’s a big concern with this increasing aggression.”

Burke said Russian efforts to control the Black Sea must be met with a U.S. and NATO strategic presence, Burke claimed. “We need to challenge that [Russian government] narrative and not let that become the norm,” he said. If Burke were to look at a map, he’d realize that NATO is 1,000 km closer to Moscow than it was during the Cold War, not only from the west but also from the south.