British Typhoon jets are being deployed to Romania to counter “a more assertive Russia”.
The Defence Secretary said that the UK will commit RAF Typhoon aircraft to the NATO Southern Air Policing mission to offer reassurance to the Black Sea allies. Deployed from RAF Coningsby, the Typhoons will be based at Mihail Kogălniceanu Airbase, Romania, for up to four months in 2017.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
“Backed by a rising defence budget this deployment of air, land and sea forces shows that we will continue to play a leading role in NATO, supporting the defence and security of our allies from the north to the south of the alliance.”
The announcement comes after the Defence Secretary confirmed at the weekend that the UK will deploy a 28-strong team to Kosovo for a year.
A press release stated:
“This increase to our contribution to the KFOR Mission, NATO’s largest operation, will help to maintain a safe and secure environment for all communities in Kosovo.”
The government say that the UK deployment will also provide reassurance in the Western Balkan region from early 2017.
I’m sure Putin is trembling……
We are back to a tripwire strategy – but what do we do if Putin trips the wire?
Send a strongly worded letter! As much as I admire the Typhoon, 4 (presumably is all we will/can afford to send) would not stop Putin tripping the wire…. Putin knows how impotent we in Europe are – shame is our politicians don’t!
It is just a trip wire as you say, but they are very good jet’s.. Doing our bit amongst the other NATO nations. If Russia ever made the crazy mistake of attacking a Nato nation fully mobilized Nato air power would very much over power the Russian air force. Me Think’s.. ! But i’m sure somebody will disagree with me on here. lol
You are correct John in that the Typhoon is an excellent jet and in my opiinion our RAF pilots are the best in the world. The problem is we simply don’t have enough of them and the qualitative edge over the latest series of Russian jets is not what it once was. Now I don’t believe Putin would invite open conflict by invading a NATO member but these days I’m not convinced there is even the political will amongst European capitals at least, to implement Article 5 of the NATO Charter even if he did – unless Uncle Sam did… Read more »
Yes i think you make some good points David.. I have the feeling if Hillary Clinton does win the election over in the USA, the new administration might put more pressure on European NATO members to raise there defence budgets above 2% GDP. There certainly are a lot of people in the USA that feel the Europeans should do more and to be honest i agree with them. When it comes to the UK at least we are going to being filling some of the holes in our defence made by the savage defence cut’s.. Two new carriers and 9… Read more »
Cut the Lords by 50%
Cut the MP’s by a similar margin
and root out overmanning at the MOD
Well it’s a start!