【縛雞之見】
The nixing, as the B-52H bombers at Guam, flew back to their home base in
the U.S. showed, suggesting a scenario that the U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific
Region are getting weak. PLA will, on
the contrary, certainly notice the news.
But it is not necessarily so.
The Japanese empire Navy has misinterpreted news, causing a strategic
fault on December 8, 1945, and devastating damage on 4-7 June 1946.
Air Force
nixes regular bomber rotations on Guam for less predictable global deployments Stars and Stripes 20200417
Just days after showing off a runway parade
of airpower on Guam, the Air Force ended its
longtime practice of maintaining a continuous bomber presence in the Pacific
region through aircraft rotations at the
island’s Andersen Air Force Base.
The service said it is nixing the six-month
rotations in place since 2004 in favor of a less predictable global
deployment regimen.
On Thursday, five B-52H bombers flew back
to their home station at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., according to
Aircraft Spots, an online military aircraft tracker.
Over the past 15 years, bomber
patrols from Guam over the East and South China Seas have
served as a means of projecting U.S. airpower and resolve to North
Korea, China and Russia.
“In line with the National Defense Strategy, the United States has
transitioned to an approach that enables strategic
bombers to operate forward in the Indo-Pacific region from a broader array of
overseas locations, when required, and with greater operational
resilience, while these bombers are permanently based in the United States,”
Maj. Kate Atanasoff, a spokesperson for U.S. Strategic Command, said in a
statement.
Strategic bombers will continue to operate in the
Indo-Pacific, including Guam, “at the
timing and tempo of our choosing,” she said.
The Air Force will maximize its opportunities to train with allies and
partner nations to “bolster our collective ability
to be operationally unpredictable,”
Atanasoff said.
“We continually reassess our overseas posture and adjust to meet the
requirements of the Joint Force and combatant commanders as well as our treaty
commitments,” she said.
The Air Force’s end of continuous bomber
support from Guam was first reported by thedrive.com.
In response to a query by Stars and Stripes, Atanasoff said in an email
that this “adjustment to our posture was long-planned and completely unrelated
to the [coronavirus] pandemic.”
She did not have a specific list of alternate locations to which bombers
would rotate but added that the Air Force has and will continue to operate
globally in multiple areas.
The bomber missions will support the Pentagon’s strategy
of “operational unpredictability” by using a mix of aircraft that
include B-52, B-1 or B-2 bombers from bases throughout the U.S. mainland and
Guam, she said.
On Monday, 14 aircraft paraded in an
“elephant walk” formation along the runway at Andersen. Aside from the five Stratofortress strategic
bombers were six KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refuelers, an MH-60S Knighthawk
helicopter and two unmanned surveillance drones.
Multimillion-dollar upgrades to infrastructure at Andersen and Naval Base
Guam over the past decade have elevated the U.S. territory into a key strategic
hub. Work is also underway on and near
Andersen for the planned transfer of roughly 5,000 Marines and their dependents
from Okinawa in about 2024.
Guam is now the Navy’s epicenter of coronavirus after the aircraft
carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived on March 27 with hundreds of sailors
sickened by the virus. One sailor has since died, and several others have been
hospitalized in intensive care on Guam.
沒有留言:
張貼留言
請網友務必留下一致且可辨識的稱謂
顧及閱讀舒適性,段與段間請空一行