Approximately 100 Air National Guardsmen from the 124th Fighter Wing out of Gowen Field, Idaho, accompanied A-10 Thunderbolt IIs to Spangdahlem AB, Germany, to support the Combined Resolve II training exercise. The US Army Europe-directed multinational exercise is conducted in partnership with 15 NATO and European partners, including Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Solvenia, and the US. It will be May 15 to June 30, according to a May 20 release. “This is an interoperability exercise working on partnership tasks, because this is the way we are going to fight in the future,” said Christian Marquardt, Joint Multinational Training Command spokesman. The “A-10s will support ground troops participating in force-on-force maneuver training at the US Army’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany,” states the release The mission “is the same mission that we do back home. We provide close air support for friendlies on the ground when they are receiving effective fire from the enemy,” said 1st Lt. Kristen Daigle, officer in charge of intelligence. “The A-10s will roll in and try to get the enemy off their back.”
China thinks it will be able to invade Taiwan by 2027 and has developed a technology edge in many key areas—but it is artificial intelligence that may be the decisive factor should conflict erupt, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.