OTTAWA—As NATO leaders prepare to beef up the military presence in eastern Europe as a deterrence to Russia aggression, Canadian fighter pilots are already there.
Six CF-18 fighter jets were sent to Romania in early May, dispatched to Europe as part of a show of force in the face of Russian military moves in Ukraine.
The Canadian fighter jets have now moved to Lithuania to patrol the skies at the front lines of what some worry could be the next standoff with Russia.
Those tensions aren’t lost on the fighter pilots deployed overseas but it doesn’t influence their day-to-day flying, said Lt.-Col. Jonathan Nelles, deputy commander and chief of staff of the air task force during its time in Romania.
“We all want to understand the political situation and why it is we are in the location that we are, why we have been sent here,” Nelles said.
“But at the tactical level, we have a mission to execute,” Nelles told the Star in a telephone interview from Campia Turzii, Romania, where the Canadians were recently stationed.
“We are close to where those tensions are but our daily activities do not involve those tensions,” he said.
Yet those tensions will top the agenda when the leaders of the NATO military alliance, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, gather in Wales next week to discuss their response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing backing of separatist rebels fighting in Ukraine.
The deployment of the six CF-18s and several hundred military personnel to Romania in April was part of “reassurance” measures by NATO to step up its presence in eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s military moves.
In Lithuania, those fighters will be flying missions on Russia’s doorstep — a mere 300 kilometres away as the CF-18 flies — where they will be until at least December.
“Through the hard work of our men and women in uniform, Canada will continue to demonstrate the strength of allied solidarity in response to Russian aggression,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement confirming the Lithuanian mission.
The deployments are a throwback to the era when Canadian fighters and army units were permanently based in West Germany, helping to maintain a nervous peace on the front-lines of the Cold War.
In those days, when Canadian CF-104 Starfighter jets thundered off the runways and into the sky, pilots knew well the deadly serious nature of their missions.
“Back then, during my flying in Europe it was during the Cold War, so 150 miles east of us were people who wanted to kill us. Our job was to prepare to do it to them,” said former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn.
“We weren’t just there to be a flying club. We were there for potentially a pretty serious reason,” said Hawn, now the Conservative MP for Edmonton Centre.
Indeed, the pilot-turned-politician got his call-sign “Hawnski” after flying for 20 minutes through East German airspace in his sleek Starfighter jet.
“I was chased out by some East German MiGs. They didn’t catch me,” said Hawn, adding that a fellow pilot thought that if he was going to fly in Soviet airspace, he should at least have a Russian-sounding name.
The times have changed. The end of the Cold War and shrinking defence budgets prompted Canada to shutter its European bases.
NATO jets still patrol European skies. NATO has been flying so-called air policing missions over the Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — since 2004, when the three countries joined the 28-member military alliance.
Though not a new mission, it has taken new urgency as geopolitical tensions rise. Since April, NATO has committed additional fighters to patrol the Baltic airspace.
This is the first time Canadian fighter jets have participated. Indeed, the deployments to Romania and Lithuania mark the first time Royal Canadian Air Force fighters have operated so far east in Europe, past the Cold War-era borders that divided east and west.
“Our fighter aircraft have certainly not operated in this area of the world, eastern Europe, in the past,” Nelles said.
Flying from an airbase in Siauliai, part of their mission over the Baltics will be to conduct air patrols and intercept any aircraft — usually Russian — that infringe on the sovereign airspace over the three countries.
It’s similar to the missions now flown by Canadian and U.S. jets under the umbrella of North American Aerospace Defense Command to protect airspace over Canada and the U.S.
“Same concept, just a different location,” Nelles said.
Yet because of the nature of that intercept mission, the CF-18s will be armed when they fly from Lithuania, unlike their time in Romania.
Canada’s deployment of fighters could be the prelude of a larger NATO commitment to position troops and equipment in the Baltic States to ensure they are not seen as an “easy target” by Russia.
That’s the advice from a July report from the British House of Commons defence committee, which warned that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are especially vulnerable “due to their position, their size and their lack of strategic depth.”
It quoted one retired Swedish general as saying the territories could be overrun in a couple of days. Without forces based in the Baltic states, it’s unlikely NATO could respond to a surprise attack.
It said that the attack on Ukraine has raised the possibility — albeit “unlikely” — of an attack on the Baltic states and said NATO must step up its readiness.
The report recommends that NATO leaders consider whether to pre-position equipment in the Baltic states, keep NATO troops on exercise there and establish a headquarters to focus on eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Because all three countries are NATO members, under the alliance’s treaty 5, an attack on one would be seen as an attack on all of the alliance, potentially triggering a sweeping military response.
Academic Roland Paris, of the University of Ottawa, says the vulnerability of the Baltic states may have prompted Canada’s decision to contribute the air assets.
“They are more vulnerable that the other countries and there are signs that Russia has been connecting with Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic countries in a way that is worrisome,” Paris said in an interview.
“In the end, six CF-18s are not going to change the strategic calculus. It’s symbolic. The deployment of six CF-18s means we are putting skin in the game,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he fears that the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin go beyond Ukraine. But he said the best security of the Baltic states is their membership in NATO.
“I think the leaders in the Kremlin are very well aware that any attempt to test our determination to defend and protect our allies would provoke a very firm response from our side,” Rasmussen said, vowing that the alliance would take “all measures” to protect a member state.
In Romania, the Canadians got a chance to work with a NATO partner overcoming differences in culture, language, tactics and procedures.
And because Romania flies Soviet-era MIG-21 Lancer fighters, Canadian pilots got a chance to fly alongside — and mock fight against — aircraft they don’t normally see.
The lessons learned during peacetime collaboration are vital for those times when “things get more complex,” Nelles said.
“Knowing how someone else is going to react and respond and knowing other’s capabilities is truly important,” he said.
“We had a lot more integration than just flying jets in the air. It was developing a camaraderie, a rapport, an understanding and a trust which I think is vital for defining what interoperability really is,” Nelles said.
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