By Prabalta Rijal
Brussels (Belgium) – United States says it is strengthening its presence in Eastern Europe and Africa. It is also enhancing its capabilities and partnerships in the two continents.
Commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe And U.S. Air Forces Africa, General Tod D. Wolters, told journalists in a Telephonic Briefing that through a total force integration effort, The US had utilised the full spectrum of its Air Force via participation from the Active, Guard and Reserve.
“Additionally, these exercises further demonstrated the value of partnerships and further strengthened the critical relationships, we have with our allies and partners.
Specifically, exercises like Saber Strike and BALTOPS improved our resiliency, responsiveness and lethality,” he said.
While talking about the US Air Force capacities in the African continent, he stated that their efforts in strengthening capabilities in the region were paying off.
“What I can say is in the area of improving indications and warnings and command and control and command and feedback, we are working by, with and through the countries to improve our ability to build partnership capacity.
And we’re pleased to report in those campaign areas we’re continuing to make improvements. So the posture of the forces and their ability to provide command and control are improving over time,”
He said while answering a question based on the armed drone exercises the US had carried out in Niger recently.
Wolters further stated that although there have been reports that the US will be dropping down its capabilities in Africa, which could cause further problems in countries like Somalia that are still recuperating from years of instability, this was not entirely the case and they are in fact working on building capacities inside the continent.
“One of the recent activities is the African Partnership Flight Program is that we have crews and a specific aircraft that has specific expertise, and they forward deploy as a team and they stay anywhere from two days to two weeks and they share tactics, techniques and procedures on how to aviate, navigate and communicate and on how to lift and shift resources.
And it dramatically improves the disposition of the air components that exist on the African continent. And we know that continues to take place. It will continue to take place in the future, and we’re very, very excited about the improvement that we see,” he said.
According to him, the demand for air, space and cyber power is only continuing to grow and America’s Airmen need to be resourced and trained to fight as a joint and allied military team to answer these challenges.
“As the Commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, I can guarantee that we will continue to remain laser focused on maintaining and improving our readiness and warfighting posture,” he said.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/06/19/news/nigerian-air-force-bombards-bandits-in-zamfara/
