By Natasha Bertrand, CNN
(CNN) — US Army soldiers were deployed to a remote island southeast of Alaska last week as part of a “force protection operation” amid an expected increase in Russian and Chinese military exercises in the region, according to an Army statement.
The North American Aerospace Defense command (NORAD) intercepted Russian military aircraft flying near Alaska four times over the last week as Russia conducted military exercises in the area.
The Army sent elements of the 11th Airborne Division to Shemya Island, Alaska on September 12 in response to the planned drills as a show of “ready, lethal force,” according to the Army statement. The division is known as the Arctic Angels and they are normally stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fort Wainwright in Alaska.
“As the number of adversarial exercises increases around Alaska and throughout the region, including June’s joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol, the operation to Shemya Island demonstrates the division’s ability to respond to events in the Indo-Pacific or across the globe, with a ready, lethal force within hours,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division.
So far, the Russian aircraft has not entered US or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said, but the Pentagon has been tracking the exercises.
“These activities are not unusual and are not seen as a threat,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday. “The US has been tracking these planned exercises for some time, and they pose no threat to the US homeland or the NATO alliance.”
Though the new US deployment is not a sign of a significant escalation in tensions, relations with the US’ two main military adversaries remains fraught, particularly as the Ukraine war continues. Though the Biden administration has worked to resume high-level communications with China, including between military leaders, Beijing remains the US’ major military competitor.
Managing relations with both nations will be a key challenge regardless of whoever wins the presidential election in November.
Republican nominee former President Donald Trump has signaled he will take a different approach to the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting he will settle the war between Russia and Ukraine when he takes office.
And earlier this week, he suggested that China and the Russia are not necessarily adversaries.
“I don’t know that they’re enemies,” he said on Monday, suggesting that, if elected, “we’ll get along great” with both countries.
Trump was asked in a conversation on X Spaces while launching a new cryptocurrency business whether he thought there was “a force out there to get you” after the second apparent assassination attempt against him.
“Well, you have a radical left force. And we have forces, you know, I say that we have a lot of evil in the world. The world is a nasty place, and you can see that some with some of the things that have happened. We’ve been treated, I think, very unfairly, but I’ve done so well. It’s an amazing country in some ways but we have evil forces,” Trump said.
The former president continued, “You have the outside forces with the enemies, and you know, you call them Russia, China, various places, I don’t know that they’re enemies. I think we’ll get along great with China. I think we’ll get along great with Russia. I want to get Russia to settle up with, with Ukraine and stop this.”
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