A Cold, Foggy U.S. Air Force Base Waits Just 200 Miles From Russia

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A Cold, Foggy U.S. Air Force Base Waits Just 200 Miles From Russia
By: David Axe - Forbes News Staff - 05-07-21
Re: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=36422fdf5e52

Photo link: https://specials-images.forbesimg.co...149&cropY2=599
F-22s at King Salmon Airport. U.S. AIR FORCE

The U.S. Air Force just practiced dispersing its Alaska-based F-22 stealth fighters to a small outlying airstrip.

As part of the so-called “Agile Combat Employment” exercise, F-22s from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage—the Pentagon’s main Alaska base—flew into King Salmon airport, 300 miles to the southwest.

“By operating from forward operating locations such a King Salmon, we are proving our strategic flexibility, freedom of movement and our ability to develop and to execute proactive and scalable options for future missions,” said Brig. Gen. William Radiff, deputy commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command Alaska Region.

Agile Combat Employment is an important new approach to air warfare. Rather than concentrating its fighters at a small number of big, vulnerable bases—and thus exposing them to attack—the Air Force is building new small airstrips and refurbishing old, shuttered ones so that fighter squadrons can spread out.

Dispersing across a greater number of smaller bases puts fighters closer to the action—and also complicates an attacker’s planning.

In Alaska, though, the Air Force barely has begun working up new airstrips. King Salmon is a nice start. If and when the flying branch reopens Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island—that’s when you should get really excited.

Early in the Cold War, the Soviet air force planned to send nuclear-armed bombers across the Bering Sea on their way to atomize American cities. The U.S. and Canadian air forces set up airstrips across Alaska and northern Canada in a desperate effort to defend against these nuclear intruders.

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Fighters from Elmendorf—F-102s then F-4s and, later, F-15s—leapfrogged across three main forward operating bases at Galena, Eareckson and King Salmon. Only King Salmon still routinely supports fighters. Eareckson’s fighter mission ended in the early 1990s.

Don’t blame its location. It’s not for no reason the Air Force built its powerful Cobra Dane early-warning radar on Shemya. The six-square-mile island lies just 200 miles from Russia.

Fighters staging from Eareckson would be in an ideal position to intercept Russian warplanes over the cold water of the Bering Sea. But at a cost. Eareckson is remote, cold and foggy.

Its power comes from generators. Deadly storms occasionally strip the roofs off its buildings. The weather is so bad that, even as divert airfield—a sort of safety base for passing planes—Eareckson is only marginally useful. Fog blankets the 10,000-foot runway up to half the year.

Eareckson is so nasty that, when the U.S. Army wants to practice warfare in cold and unforgiving conditions, it often uses the former air base. Chinook helicopter crews practice flying there from the mainland. C-17s recently landed at the former fighter base to rehearse the rapid repositioning of rocket batteries.

But for all its limitations, Eareckson has immense strategic value.

The Air Force knows it. Even as Agile Combat Employment catches on and more fighter squadrons spread out across more bases, the service still hasn’t committed to fully reopening Eareckson.

But the Air Force is keeping the facility warm. Since 2012, the flying branch has spent $200 million keeping the lights on at Eareckson, King Salmon and a third remote airfield on Wake Island in the mid-Pacific. And in 2016, the government paid a contractor $10 million to put new roofs on a hangar and other buildings at Eareckson.

No other U.S. airfield that isn’t an aircraft carrier can put fighters so close to Russia.

About this writer: David Axe
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I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.

Personal note: I'm sure Putin knows they are there! The closer we are to Russia they become targets of concern and will know doubt be the first hit to prevent a quick response from the US. I'm sure our guys know this! Who knows maybe nothing will happen but its the what if's that bothers everyone!
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