ME & US: The United Front

When the Middle East’s fragile peace is broken, which sadly is a regular occurrence, the US government is always there to provide support and reassurance to its allies.

It’s no secret that most countries in the region fear Iran and its many militias, like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Just as they do the more well-known extreme Islamic groups like the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE has regularly come under attack, while Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar are just as susceptible. Egypt, another major US ally, continues its fight against radical elements in the Sinai.

Working with foreign militaries and governments is important to the US, which is a major responsibility of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The man currently tasked with leading this herculean effort for U.S. Central Command’s air component is Lieutenant General Derek France, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT), who splits his time between Qatar and the USA. 

The author caught up with the AFCENT Commander at the Egyptian International Air Show (EIAS) in mid-September and asked him to sum up the USAF’s presence in the Middle East.

“The region is really tense right now, so one of the things we do at AFCENT/CENTCOM is send forces out here to help fulfil our long-term goal to stabilise the region – we get a return in value, provides assurance to partners, and long-term stability.”

Maintaining regional partnerships is key to the US, as Lt. Gen. France explained: “The US is never going to do anything on its own, because we are spread all over the world. To have all our resources in one theatre is just not realistic.

“Our key to success is to have partnerships like we do with the Egyptians – working on technical interoperability like using the same radios, datalinks, etc.

“What I try to stress is to have cultural connections and face-to-face connections so we can get our allies through military training in the US, and development programmes.” He added, “You can be technically-linked all you want, but if you are not humanly-linked it’s a real challenge.”

He provided an example of how AFCENT works in Egypt. “The Egyptian Air Force is a very capable air force and they really strive to partner with us. It’s important we build multilateral relationships that we can’t get from an email or a telephone call. Instead meet each other face-to-face to have some meaningful dialogue.  

“Egypt is one of my focusses and we recently held our joint biennial Egyptian-led Bright Star exercise, which is the flagship of the work we do together. We have touchpoints with them in multilateral exercises through the Air Warfare Centre [at Al Dhafra] in UAE.”

The USAF don’t generally send their most sophisticated fighters to air shows, like EIAS or the more recent Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS) in November. “Let’s say we send ‘the seasoned combat jets’ like the Boeing F-15E, Lockheed Martin F-16C and Northrop Grumman A-10Cs. They may not be as flashy as others, but they get the job done.”

The USAF even sent an iconic Boeing B-52H to BIAS, along with an A-10C tank-buster and F-16CM which definitely fit that ‘seasoned’ category because as the serial numbers of each aircraft showed, they have served the US collectively for around 140 years, giving the three aircraft an average age of nearly 50 years!

That’s not to say the USAF doesn’t send its cutting-edge fighters to the region, because in August, 12 Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptors were flown to an undisclosed location in the Middle East in a bid to keep the peace.

The B-52H’s appearance at Bahrain was a sensation, so much so that the crown prince of Bahrain, prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, deputy supreme commander of the armed forces and prime minister jumped in his golf buggy and drove up to the bomber, surrounded of course by his security personnel. He received an escorted tour from colonel Andy ‘Cuffs’ Ladd, AFCENT’s director of strategy and theatre security cooperation.

The colonel explained to the author why the eight-engined bomber was at BIAS. “Not only does the B-52’s presence here show that the US is engaged, postured, and ready; it also demonstrates a credible force to assure, deter, and defend in an increasingly complex and dynamic security environment.”

But it didn’t end there, because on the second day of the three-day event, two B-52Hs also opened the flying display, with not just one or two, but three formation flypasts. As colonel Ladd said, “This sends out a clear message to our potential adversaries, that while we have no desire for a war, if conflict cannot be avoided, the coalition has the most dominant fighting force on the planet.”  

The USAF had announced on November 3 that six B-52s had been deployed to the region from the 5^th bomb wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota. The first time B-52s had deployed to a base in the Middle East since 2019. It was also the first time a ‘Buff’ had made an appearance on-the-ground at a Middle East aerospace show. 

According to the USAF release “the B-52s were providing fresh air power designed to compensate for the upcoming departure of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. It also comes as senior Iranian officials have threatened to attack Israel following its retaliatory airstrikes on Iranian air defences and ballistic missile production sites on October 26.”

While the B-52s came from an undisclosed location in the Middle East, they could easily have come from anywhere in the world as Colonel Ladd stressed. “They can fly from anywhere to deliver global precision strike and return back to a safe location. This sends a very clear and unambiguous message to any aggressor that we are in a constant state of readiness to bolster the coalition’s defence ecosystem to assure peace and stability across the U.S. central command area of responsibility.”

One of the many hats that colonel Ladd wears includes integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) systems coordination in the region.

“This is the only way to stop an enemy capable of attacking from 360 degrees, by providing enhanced situational awareness to allow enough reaction time to stop the incoming threats (missiles, unmanned aerial systems) etc. from inside [the aggressors] territorial borders.

“You could have multiple, complex threats coming from all directions, not just ballistic missiles. These complex threats consist of a combination of land-attack cruise missiles, many different variants of weaponised unmanned aerial systems that are capable of flying great distances from multiple countries.

You need to provide adequate detection synchronised with capable and compatible weapon systems to destroy those threats. The US can assist in enhancing those efforts by offering its own capabilities.”

The very capable, highly-regarded long-range Raytheon MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system is in service with seven countries in the Middle East – Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE with Bahrain joining them in early 2024 to become the 18th Patriot operator. 

The IAMD system doesn’t just protect the skies of one country in the Middle East, the six nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) are partnering together to complete a network that overlaps all the airspace.

“We have secure ways to share information because it’s important for every nation’s defence.”

Colonel Ladd explains and finishes: “We have made huge strides in establishing the collective framework to counter threats for the long-term peace and security of the region.”