Former U.S. Army Europe commander Ben Hodges says the Baltic Air Policing mission should shift to air defense and calls for more thorough NATO air defense exercises.
This past week there’s been a lot of discussion about Russian drones in NATO territory and what we should do about it. Do you think NATO’s response been enough so far?
Absolutely not. You know, as Estonians know, the Russians have been testing or probing airspace and conducting illegal activities at sea, all the different aspects of so-called gray zone operations. We’ve been watching what they were doing against Ukraine for the last several years.
So when Russia launched their drone operation last week, the response was to send up F-35s and other fighter jets against what turned out to be somewhere around 15 or 19 different Russian drones. That response proved that we are not ready.
Now credit to the Poles that they had the correct rules of engagement and were allowed to shoot down these drones, but the problem is, you know, the Ukrainians face 300–400 drones a day and they’ve figured out how you deal with that, and it’s not by sending up your expensive top shelf aircraft.
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