Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Commander, U.S. Air Forces Africa; Commander, Allied Air Command briefs at the New York Foreign Press Center on U.S. Air Force priorities in Europe and Africa
Transcript
Thumbs up in the back. Good to go. All right, good afternoon everyone. Welcome back to the New York Foreign Press Center. We’re happy to have you here. We’re honored to have Air Force General Harrigian today, to talk about his command priorities. Just a brief introduction: General Jeff Harrigian is the Commander of the US Air Forces Europe, US Air Forces Africa. He is also the Allied Air Component Commander for NATO. In total, he has 104 countries under his watch. He will give remarks at the beginning, followed by Q&A, which I will moderate. So, at this point, we’ll just had the floor over to the General, and after this we’ll have a discussion. Okay, this conversation will last about 30 minutes.
Okay, thank you. And thank you all for being here, and good afternoon. As she highlighted, as the commander for both US Air Forces at Europe, Africa, and as the NATO Air Component Commander, it’s imperative that we take a 360 view across the region that we’re responsible for. So that takes us from the Arctic, through the Baltics, to the west, across the Atlantic, and then, actually, south through Europe and all the way down through Africa. And then, as we go to the east, I’m also responsible for, of course, Israel, and up into Turkey. So, a vast area, that is very dynamic right now, working primarily focused on deterrence missions, while also clearly taking a close look at violent extremism, terrorism, ensuring that we continue to support, not only our US entities that are operating across both continents, but also our partners that we work closely with. And to do that, we focus primarily first on our people, to make sure that, collectively, we are ready and prepared. And along that line, we ensure that our readiness is at the appropriate level to be able to compete in the environments that we’re operating in today. Competing with, primarily with Russia, as we work through the challenges of the European environment. But also, as you look into Africa, there is multiple actors there that we compete with, to ensure, again, stability and security across the region. Two other key priorities that we have is to make sure that we’re postured properly. And when I talk about our posture, I’m referencing not only where we are at, but what we have and how we best leverage the capacities that we have to be in the appropriate places. And the third big priority we have, then, is our partnerships. We will not ever do anything alone. We will always be together with our partners. In NATO, of course, we have the allies that we’re closely attached with, and work daily to ensure that, collectively, we’re providing the security and stability across the region, to ensure prosperity moving forward. So, those are the keys for us, in terms of the environment that I’m working in, and our priorities, and I’d be happy to take any of your questions.
[George] Yeah, we’ll start… My name is George Theke, I’m with Ukrainian News Agency
Good to meet you
Open Forum My question is, how much do you think the environment has changed since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, for you, for your forces? And, second consequent question is, Ukraine, of course, is not a NATO member, and it’s Air Force now is, you know, difficult. But, do you see any further cooperation. There has been some training last year. This mean further cooperation to make the security stronger.
Right. So, certainly, 2014 was a critical event for all of us. And allowed us to re-look our position, how we were postured, and our operational environment across the theater. And, as we have reviewed that, and, as you’ve seen over the course of the last several years, it has required us to more appropriately re-look how we were postured, and where we were placed, to ensure that we had the right indications and warnings, the ability to properly support our partners. And that’s been a significant change from where we were previously. And relative to your second question, as you highlighted, we had a very good engagement with the Ukrainian Air Force here last year. And that afforded us an opportunity to build some partnerships that had been required to work over time. And what it demonstrated to us is the potential for strengthening the relationship, and the opportunities from an airman-to-airman perspective, to build the camaraderie, the culture of operating together, that will be very important to us in the future. Sir.
[Manik] My name is Manik Mehta. I am syndicator. My question relates to the structure of NATO. Turkey has been buying Russian equipment, much to your annoyance. So, how do you reconcile the NATO position vis-a-vis Turkey, which is, so to say, crossing the red line and buying these equipments from Russia.
Well, first off, what I’d highlight to you is, Turkey remains an incredibly important partner to the Alliance. And we are, and as I say we, as NATO, we remain committed to Turkey as an ally. From a US perspective, clearly, as the US, in coordination with NATO, has talked about, what has occurred with the S-400, that is a challenge. And it’s a problem that, in the short-term, is one that we are going to have to continue to work our way through, recognizing that there’s no room for an S-400 to be operating inside of Turkey, and that remains a critical area that we continue to work our way through. Having said that, we recognize that Turkey will be a NATO partner that we’re gonna continue to work with. And, particularly from a military-to-military perspective, our relationships, the cooperation, remains very strong. There will always be areas that there will be tension, areas that we have to work our way through, but I will assure you that the work that we’re accomplishing together with our Turkish partners remains very solid, that relationship is strong.
[Manik] May I ask another, related, question?
Certainly.
[Manik] There have been calls, particularly in Germany. I was there recently. And some of the politicians were talking about expelling Turkey from NATO, which I think is technically not possible, because there’s no mechanism within the NATO charter to expel a member state. So, assuming that this situation does arise in the future, and the call for Turkey’s expulsion gets stronger, how would you resolve that?
Well, I don’t wanna delve into the political environment that is clearly gonna be something that our senior leaders across all of NATO will work their way through, and have those discussions as they need. Importantly, from where I sit, my job is to ensure that we continue to have this strong relationship with Turkey that we have right now. And I will share with you that I have several Turkish officers that are on my staff at Allied Air Command, and they are phenomenal officers that do fantastic work for me. And so, as the political environment continues to talk about those issues, our job is to be prepared from an air component perspective inside of NATO, and that’s where we will stay focused. We will stay laser-focused on that, to be prepared to execute any mission that the nations, the Alliance, should drive us to execute. Sir.
[Turkish-American] A listener from Talk of America, I’m Turkish-American. So, since you start with the Turkey, I would like to ask two questions. One, the importance of Incirlik base. There are some sometimes discussion internal politics that, you know, is it useful or not? So I would like to get your opinion on that. And the second, yesterday US helicopters conducted a four joint aerial patrol on Northern Syria, and where do you see these safe zone from the Air Force perspective, because there’s still, I think, mistrust between two NATO allies, which shouldn’t be. So I would like to get your opinion on that.
Certainly. First off, Incirlik is a strategic location for us. Incredibly important. And we get outstanding support from our Turkish partners there. I will share with you that, just last week, I exchanged some notes with the wing commander there, and he once again highlighted the great relationship that we have with our Turkish partners there, and the camaraderie and the team-work that occurs there continues to be exemplary. Having said that, the location of Incirlik provides me, as the commander, multiple options when we talk about access to Syria, access to the west, or to the east, if required. So, strategically, it remains an incredibly important location, and one in which we have a great relationship, that’s really been fostered over years and years of trust and confidence in working together. And, as we look at that, I think that’s incredibly important, and that’s an area that should not get lost in and amongst all the other things that are happening in our world. Specifically, then, as you talked about the joint patrols. First off, I think it’s a tribute to the collective team that we were able to put this together in, frankly, a very short period of time. As you know, typically, we go through a fairly significant time to understand the details, understand the environment. But we, and when I say we, the US and Turkey, understood that we needed to move forward on this, to, as you highlight, capture those areas that we converge on, that we recognize the importance of. And so, while we naturally have friction, because that’s gonna occur, it’s a complex environment, it’s difficult. We needed to make sure we had a shared understanding of where we were gonna operate, how we were gonna operate, and that takes some time. But to do that, as I highlighted, we were able to pull the team together. We have people there from my head-quarters that are working, not only with the army in a joint environment, but also with our Turkish partners, to provide this capability that is critically important to ensure that we meet those requirements from our senior leaders. And to deliver this in such a short period of time is really a tribute to our relationship with the Turkish military, but also to those young folks on the ground that are actually delivering the mission.
[Turkish-American] Thank you.
[Marisa] Thank you, General (throat clearing) I just want to say thank you for your service, and that you for this briefing. My name is Marisa Lavelle, I’m with (mumbles) News. I have a few questions, actually, I wanted to ask, and I just wanted to start off with the situation in North Korea, and they’ve been firing missiles. I just wanted to ask for your… how you view the situation in North Korea? Do you actually see, from the Air Force perspective, a threat, as far as the missiles that are being fired? I know it’s a threat, as far as they can reach over Japan, but it doesn’t seem like they can get (murmurs)
It’s not my area that I spend a whole lot of time thinking about. But I do believe, as an airman, that we need to consistently be cognizant of those areas where there are activities ongoing, where nations are demonstrating new capabilities, or other capabilities that would potentially have the ability to target our partners, or those that we would be interested in protecting. And I think that’s the key area that we’ve got to continually watch. And from my perspective, I won’t get into the politics of it, but any time an activity occurs around the globe, quite frankly, there’s interest from an airman’s perspective, and what does that mean to us, in terms of our ability to defend our people.
[Marisa] And where would you put North Korea on a scale of threats?
Well, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a nation that we’ve got to be concerned with. I don’t think it’d be prudent to actually rack-and-stack them amongst all the different things that are going on in this world, but certainly one that we need to keep our eye on.
[Marisa] Thank you. And can you tell me a bit more about the Air Force’s mission within Africa, especially (mumbles) cycle went on, how is the US Air Force?
Great, thank you for that. In fact, I just had an opportunity to spend about four days down in Nairobi, where we got all the African Air Chiefs together. Not all, I should quantify that, and say we had 22 of the Air Chiefs together. Thirty-five nations were represented. And that also included about 24 of the senior enlisted leaders as well, that arrived to this. And it offered us an opportunity to find areas of common interest. And our particular symposium focused on personnel recovery. Which was important to the Kenyans and some of the other nations in East Africa. And so that provided us a unique opportunity to practice together and learn from each other, in terms of how we execute personnel recovery. Now, more broadly, from an Air Force perspective, from the US perspective, we are certainly concerned about finding extremist organizations, and any threats to our homeland, while at the same time acknowledging that we want to be good partners with our African nations, particularly from an Air Force perspective, to build the capabilities that they believe they need to be able to provide the security and stability across the region.
[Marisa] And how do you see that progressing within the (murmurs)
So, we need progress, but there’s work to be done. As I highlighted up front, these partnerships are not a one-time event. This is a journey that we’re on together to build the trust and confidence in each other, so that, when called upon, we can work together to be able to deliver that security that they need for their specific nations, acknowledging that each one of them may have a different perspective on what that requires for them.
[Marisa] I know you said there was also a lot of competitions within Africa, which… There area lot of countries in Africa that, you know, and so—
For sure.
[Marisa] What do you consider these competitions? What is (rustling of paper drowns out speech)
So, the area that we spent some time talking about with is, clearly both Russia and China are competing with us, and I say that as, us is the US, in Africa. And so, it’s imperative for us, to first build that trust and confidence with our partners, that they can rely on us as good partners, from the US perspective. I would say the other piece of that is to demonstrate the nefarious activities that may occur with what the Chinese or the Russians are doing, in terms of how they offer to support the African nations, but may not ultimately have the goals of those nations as their stated intent.
[Marisa] And this, so, also… Sorry, I’m jumping from country to country. With Venezuela we see the US is becoming increasingly more involved in that. Do you see this as.. I kinda see it as a new cold war. Can you give me your opinion on that, or your comments on that?
Well, Venezuela… From my perspective, one of the things we watched closely was the Russian support to Venezuela, and tried to, number one, maintain situational awareness on what activities the Russians were taking on there. I will defer you to the South American expertise in terms of more broadly what that means, but I think it does offer us insight from a US perspective, on how Russia is intending to influence Venezuela going forward, and that’s something from our perspective that we’re watching closely.
[Marisa] One last question, just briefly… Sorry! (laughs) Just recently, the POTUS established the Space Forest. And I think a lot of that jurisdiction, even though it expands across the military, I think a lot of that jurisdiction falls under the Air Force. Aerospace and Cyberspace. So, can you tell me a bit more about what… I don’t know if you have any, or if that falls with, kind of, you, as far as what—
Well, I will talk broadly about it, in that it is exactly the right path for, not only the Department of Defense, but for the US more broadly, in that, clearly, moving forward, space has already demonstrated it’s importance to the security and stability, quite frankly, of the entire globe. Because of the, you know, where space is. Having said that, it’s important that we dedicate the true experts who understand space and its interaction with what happens on the ground, to allow what we’ve been working, really, over the last several years, the integration of space into our activities. This will allow us to further mature that, and acknowledge the fact that space is really and important domain that we need to have the right level of engagement, not only in space, but the interrelationship of space to what’s ongoing terrestrially, to better position ourselves into the future.
[Marisa] Thank you.
[Alexei] General, I know from the invitation that is not your geographical area, but I am quite sure that you know a lot of secrets about—
Secrets!
[Unnamed Male] Area 51 in Nevada! (laughter)
[Alexei] Give us—
Well—
[Alexei] Information about this Air Force base, if you can, and should we expect some—
Yeah, I mean, I..
September 20s.
There’s, you know, it’s… We operate from Nellis Air Force base. There’s activities that go on up-range, of which, you know, I don’t have the complete picture on. I think there are those that—
[Alexei] You’ve been there?
Well, I’ve flown in the vicinity. How’s that for an answer? You know, most of us that have, are in the US Air Force, operate up out of Nellis, quite frequently, for training. And, you know, there are activities that occur on the range that, you know, allow us to do some testing and training that are important to what we do in the Air Force.
[Alexei] If you know, how many the US Air Force abroad of the United States? I can Google it, of course, but probably you know.
How many US Air Force—
[Alexei] Bases, abroad of the United States.
[Moderator] In total, or in his portfolio?
[Alexei] I don’t know, in your portfolio, for example. In total. Anyway, my question is that, usually doesn’t matter US or British base in Cyprus, or Russian military base in Romania. All these, it is a kind of the news trigger for bad or good news. How do you feel, for example, in Germany, and German authorities and German population—
That is a very good question, in that I will share with you that our support from the German host nation authorities, it’s really very good. We get great support, probably beyond just the military. Specifically, the individuals. But it’s really to our families. As you look broadly around how we, not only deliver our mission sets, but also are supported by the German population and those that support our day-to-day activities. We’ve been there a long time. They have dedicated themselves as a nation to ensure we’re taken care of. And that has remained consistent for as long as anyone that I’ve talked to. And I think that’s important to remember as we talk about where we’re at right now inside of Germany.
[Alexei] A few days ago, President Trump approved their 32-F, 35, to Poland. Who will train? Manufacturer or you?
To be determined. So, as you highlighted, the decision was just made. So there will be a very deliberate process going forward, to determine the time-lines, how the training will work. And when I say the training, not only for the pilots but also those technicians that will take care of the airplane. Fortunately, we’ve had years now, of working with partners on how to deliver that capability. So I think that this is, number one, a great opportunity for all of us to continue what has been a very important partnership with our Poland friends.
[Alexei] What’s the current, today, level of your engagement with Russian colleagues?
So, we… At my level, I have no direct interaction. The interaction occurs at SACURS level or the EUCOM Commander’s level, and then also at the Chairman of the Joint Sea. So, General Dunford and General Walters meet with General Droslov on occasion, I don’t know the periodicity of that, but that’s where the discussions occur.
[George] We have time for a short one?
[Moderator] Sure.
[George] Just to follow up on Ukraine. The fleet that Ukraine operates is aging. It’s operating flankers that (mumbles) and there’s a broader discussion of what to switch in the future. And there is a rumor that maybe F-15s would be one of the decisions. Just, I am interested in your view as an airman. Would that be a wise decision, security-wise, for Ukraine to proceed with this American jets?
Well, I think one of the most important areas that we work on across Europe is in our operability. And so, as the Ukrainian Air Force does their analysis of what will be appropriate, certainly, US capabilities should be a part of that discussion as we look into our operability. When you get in the specifics of airplanes, there will have to be an understanding of what the mission said they would need those airplanes to do. And that will be something for them internally to look at. But what a US aircraft does bring, is the potential for us to inter-operate very seamlessly. And when it applies itself to tactical execution, that’s very, very important. So that would be a specific capability that would be important as they move forward to their selection.
[George] Thank you.
[Moderator] We’ve one or two minutes left. Alexei?
[Alexei] Last one. Except that you are pilot or military man, do you understand that you are probably their historical person? You are responsible, probably be responsible for the push the button and start a new war. Do you feel this level of responsibility in the global?
So… I actually feel more responsible for my people, and the importance of taking care of my folks. Recognizing that, when you surround yourself with great people and partners, when those types of decisions come up, I know I’ll be provided the very best recommendations, and the contextual understanding of the environment, to be confident in any type of difficult decision that I have to make. And so, as I wake up each and every morning, I realize I’m a human, just like everybody else. But I also know that I’m surrounded by very talented folks that I work with day-in-and-day out. And I’m not talking just on the US side, but also on the NATO side of the house. Each and every day, I’m consistently impressed by their, not only tactical knowledge, but, frankly, more broadly, their holistic understanding of the environment that we’re operating in. And that gives me great confidence, that I know I’ll get recommendations that’ll support any decision that I might have to make.
[Moderator] Thank you, and one more.
[Manik] You know, they a had this Shangri La dialog in Singapore some months back. And there were some unofficial talks going on, about creating an Asian version of NATO. Is that something viable? Do you think it’s something that could materialize? Given the present—
Right, so—
[Manik] geopolitical conditions?
It’ll be difficult for me to comment on that specifically, in terms of my understanding of the environment in that part of the world. What I would tell you, though, NATO, 70 years as an alliance. Seventy years. That’s impressive. Through all the ups and downs, and the challenges of the world that we’re operating, there’s something to be said for an alliance that works together for 70 years, and has managed to sort out all the problems of this very dynamic world that we live in. So, as they move forward, whatever those discussions may be, it just highlights to me that when we work together, and we have an alliance that pulls us together, it is very powerful. And it gives nations the ability to rely on one another and know that, should they need to come to each other’s defense, that they’ll be there. And I think that would be the power of NATO, that, as they think their way through this, I would offer for them to take a look at.
[Karol] Karol Mal(mumbles), Russian News Agency (cough drowns out speech) This summer the INF Treaty came to an end, as we all know. Do you find that the situation between Russia and Europe… I mean, the tensions are rising in the region, military tensions.
So, clearly, the INF, and what occurred there, came about due to Russians’ lack of adhering to what was required in the INF Treaty. Given that, we recognize, and I say we, as both US and inside NATO, that things have changed, and we now need to understand the environment that we’re operating in. I would say that the tensions, broadly, have not risen. But there is a clear understanding of the requirement to ensure we are properly postured as a NATO force and a US force, to deter Russia going forward. And that, really, has been our focus over the course of the year, the last several months.
[Karol] Thank you.
[Moderator] Thanks. There’s one more in there. (laughter)
[Marisa] Fit the last one (mumbles) So, the… Actually, the United Nations has just opened up a board of inquiry about the attack of civilian infrastructure into Syria, and that includes Russia and Turkey that they’re investigating. And I was wondering how, or will, the Air Force, the US Air Force, contribute to that investigation?
I’m not aware of any tasking to us as US Air Force, particular to this. And given it sounds that this is relatively new, we’ll have to see going forward. But at this point in time, I know of no involvement from the US Air Force perspective.
[Marisa] Thank you.
[Moderator] General, thank you for your time today. Thank you all for coming. I will send the transcript once it’s complete.
Thank you all.
[Journalists] Thank you.