The U.S. Air Force has used Boeing [BA] C-17s to bring people back to the United States from Israel and is prepared to support Israel in other ways, if needed, but the service retains its focus on deterring China, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on Oct. 10.
“I’ve seen us try to shift to the Pacific three or four times in my career,” Kendall told an Atlantic Council virtual forum in referencing the pre-9/11 period of 2000-01 after which the U.S. focused on counterinsurgency and the late period of the Obama administration when ISIS emerged and caused a shift away from the Indo-Pacific.
“This [the Biden] administration has not taken its eye off of China as the pacing challenge despite Ukraine and I think what’s happening right now with Israel and the Palestinians,” he said. “We can do other things while we keep our eye on the most serious threat that we face…I think you’re gonna see a lot of strategic discipline going forward from the secretary [of defense], the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and the president, as we look at this and other problems we have to deal with. Over the last several years, there’s been a growing awareness of how severe a threat China is and that you really cannot take your eye off that ball.”
On Oct. 8, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that DoD is moving “to augment U.S. Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the [Middle East] region” and that the U.S. “maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required.”
Austin said that DoD “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions.”
“The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days,” he said. Such munitions may include Boeing GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs.