US and NATO Massively Leverage F-35s to Contain Russia as Ukraine War Drives On

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The US is making a strong push to leverage NATO’s F-35-enabled air power as part of a move to increase, strengthen and expand efforts to deter Russia.

President Biden announced the creation of a new Army headquarters in Poland, an increase in Navy destroyers for Rota, Spain and a move to send two additional squadrons of US F-35s to the Royal Air Force’s Lakenheath in the United Kingdom. A Pentagon report detailing Biden’s announcement at the NATO Summit in Madrid said the “fifth-generation fighters will add to the air support for NATO forces throughout Europe.”

The growing number of F-35s within the US fleet and throughout Europe is an extremely significant development when it comes to further deterrence against Russian expansion. 

The US already bases F-35s in Germany, Poland is becoming an F-35 customer and a number of countries such as Germany, Finland and Switzerland are now F-35 customers. These new countries join an existing list of countries operating the F-35 to include Denmark, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and of course the U.K. 

What this means is that a growing number of networked F-35s will operate throughout the European continent and further fortify the Eastern Flank. F-35s in both Poland and Germany, for instance, are likely able to reach Russian airspace without much trouble, and certainly UK-based F-35s could get there with some refueling. A squadron typically includes anywhere from 12 to 24 aircraft, therefore the addition of two squadrons represents a substantial increase.

This is extremely significant in a number of key respects, related to air, ground and sea power. F-35s can of course form an interconnected multi-national force of 5th Generation fighters, in part because of MADL, the aircrafts. common Multifunction Datalink. 

MADL, as it is called, enables secure data and intelligence information exchange between all F-35s, a technological pipeline which would enable F-35 countries to form large formations and disperse across a wide operational envelope. Added to this, the F-35s drone-like ISR capabilities could help fortify surveillance efforts in high risk areas, in particular due to its growing ability to network with drones from the cockpit in real-time.