After Ukraine destroyed dozens of Russian long-range bomber aircraft, veteran defence journalist Tyler Rogoway has warned that the United States is also vulnerable to such attacks overseas as well as at home.
In an unprecedented feat, Ukraine on Sunday mounted drone attacks at five airbases in Russia , some of which were as far as 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine in Russia’s Siberia region. Ukrainian officials have said that as many as 41 long-range, nuclear-capable bombers of Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 types as well as an A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft (AEWAC) were destroyed.
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In a series of posts on X, Rogoway said that the kind of attacks that Ukraine conducted “could happen in the US tomorrow”.
“This was a pivotal event. U.S. military and political leadership cannot live in partial denial of this threat anymore. Our most prized aircraft are sitting ducks,” said Rogoway, the Editor-in-Chief of The War Zone, a military- and security-focussed news outlet.
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Ukrainian officials said that the drone attacks destroyed nearly a third of Russia’s entire long-range bomber fleet.
‘Our most prized aircraft are sitting ducks’
Rogoway noted the lack of hardened shelter at US airbases at home and abroad, and the lack of seriousness to address the issue of unknown flying objects around critical installations and said that “US military and political leadership cannot live in partial denial of this threat anymore”.
Rogoway said, “For over a decade I have outlined the exact scenario as we just saw in Russia. It could happen in the US tomorrow. This was a pivotal event. U.S. military and political leadership cannot live in partial denial of this threat anymore. Our most prized aircraft are sitting ducks.”
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Rogoway referred to a Congressional censure of the US defence establishment that noted that while China built 400 hardened shelters in recent years, the United States built just 22 such shelters in the same period. Such shelters are critical in avoiding the kind of carnage Ukraine carried out yesterday in Russia.
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It’s not that the consequences of lack of such shelters are not known. In 2023, a wargame by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) projected that, in case of an armed conflict with China over Taiwan, the United States may lose most of its aircraft parked on the ground and not in aerial combat.
Rogoway further said that the Ukrainian drone attacks are a wake-up call for the world. He noted that the attacks did not just destroy so many planes but struck at the “heart of Russia’s strategic aviation capabilities and one arm of its nuclear deterrent should serve as a global wake-up call”.
Mysterious UFOs are actually spy drones, suggests Rogoway
In his indictment of the US national security establishment’s preparedness against the dangers of drones, Rogoway also suggested that the mysterious unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which have made sensational headlines in recent years, are likely drones used by foreign adversaries for spying purposes.
Instead of some advanced alien technology, Rogoway suggested that those aircraft were spy drones.
In an article in 2021, Rogoway noted that the evidence suggests that the so-called UFOs spotted around US critical installations in recent years are “actually the manifestation of foreign adversaries harnessing advances in lower-end unmanned aerial vehicle technology, and even simpler platforms, to gather intelligence of extreme fidelity on some of America’s most sensitive warfighting capabilities”.
