For the first time, a pair of H-6 bombers from China were observed flying near Alaska, in a part of the skies known as the Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ. An ADIZ is not sovereign airspace, but all craft are required to identify themselves in the interest of international security.
The Chinese H-6s flew alongside a pair of Russian Tu-95 bombers. These types of patrol flights aren’t uncommon, but what is noteworthy is the fact the Chinese and Russian bombers were seen together.
This is just the sort of topic tackled on Straight Arrow News’ Weapons and Warfare podcast. The show’s host, Ryan Robertson, spoke with Matt Shoemaker, a friend of the show and a former U.S. intelligence officer what he thought about the situation.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Ryan Robertson: These kinds of things aren’t necessarily new. America does this, I mean, every country with a military does patrol missions, yeah?
Matt Shoemaker: Absolutely. Yeah. So the way that I saw this, the interesting side of things was not so much the Russians were doing it, as you mentioned that the Russians do this all the time. Actually, it’s almost on a weekly basis that they fly Tu-16s over the Pacific, somewhat close to Alaska, or sometimes all the way down to near California. Interestingly enough. The really interesting thing was the fact that the Chinese accompanied them this time. That was the thing that we have not seen before. And the Chinese, were using what’s called an H-6, which is just their knockoff version of the Tu-16. Interestingly enough, they reverse-engineered it, and pretty much just made a carbon copy of it on a lower quality basis. So yeah, the interesting thing is that the Chinese actually were working with the Russians for this.
Robertson: So the Chinese government said this is the ninth mission that the Chinese and the Russians have done together. Like you mentioned, it’s the first time we’ve seen it close to our borders. In your mind, what does that signify? Is this a turning point in the Chinese, the PLA Air Force?
Shoemaker: Yeah, the PLAAF. PLA-AF. Yeah, lots of fun. The best one is the PLAARF, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, the PLAARF. In terms of what this means, the way that I see this is that military exercises are oftentimes a form of communication between leaders, that’s one element to it. So in some sense, it’s the leaders of countries talking to other leaders. And you can do multiple things at once. With regards to this, you can send multiple messages all at the same time. So that’s certainly one element: that the Russians and the Chinese leadership are signaling to the Americans, and to the American leadership, that they are cooperating in this regard.
It’s hard to tell right now if this is significant for the long term, because from one perspective, the Chinese and the Russians are very much at odds with each other. They tend to not like each other, you know? They went to war with each other 50 years ago, between the Soviets and the Communist Chinese. So even two communist countries went to war with each other. The Chinese certainly want what they call Greater Manchuria, what would be essentially the Kamchatka region of Russia, and giving them access to the Arctic and all that sort of stuff. They see that as historically theirs, so from that perspective, they certainly are at odds with each other. So it’s a little weird. From that perspective, to see the Russians and the Chinese working together. I think over the short to medium term it is somewhat concerning. And it’s going to require, I think, a much more robust response, from the American leadership in particular, that I don’t think has been there over the past few years. Yeah.
Robertson: Why do you feel that way? Why do you think that? Is it like a changing of the guard? Russia has always been the Boogeyman and now China’s taking over that role for America?
Shoemaker: Not so much that, it’s more that the Russian culture and to a certain extent, the Chinese culture themselves, respond to force. They respond to strength actually, is probably a better way of putting it. If they can take an inch, they’ll take a mile type mentality. And that’s just part of the cultures that are there. It’s certainly very opportunistic, to a certain extent.
So, when they interpret American diplomacy, oftentimes, they see a diplomatic sort of response as weakness more than anything. it is seen – if the Americans are intending it to be an olive branch, they’re going to more than likely interpret it as weakness if we’re not careful. And I think that’s what I’ve seen over the past two to three years in particular, if not longer. That’s the way that they’re interpreting these things. And we can go into greater discussion in terms of how that relates to something like Ukraine. That certainly has knock-on effects, but that’s why I see the leadership from the American side needs to be much more robust in this.
Robertson: You bet. Sort of a ‘Teddy Roosevelt speak softly, carry a big stick’ kind of mentality?
Shoemaker: Yes! Except for the Americans never speak softly. And we always speak in a loud voice and will wield that big stick.
Robertson: You kind of mentioned the fact that it’s surprising that the Chinese participated in this. It is the new thing, right? Are we in the U.S., with the level of our ISR capabilities… I mean, with the balloons last year, the spy balloons, we knew the spy balloons were being launched, we tracked it across the oceans, right? Can we ever really be surprised if China or Russia launches bombers at us? Because we have satellites over every part of their country, we monitor everything. Can America ever really be surprised when another country flies planes near us?
Shoemaker: Well on the one hand, the question somewhat assumes that we are always at the top of our game, and the information always makes its way up to the leadership and then leadership makes the best decision or very good decisions based off of that information. So, I think the question is assuming maybe perhaps a little bit too much.
But I would say that from a technical perspective, it is a little bit eyebrow raising, let’s put it that way. It’s simply because the Chinese have been very clear over the course of modern Chinese history that they do not want allies. They do not have friends. They have in a certain sense, colleagues, if you will. They have been very particular to say that they will not go into an alliance with anyone. So from a technical perspective, to get the logistics working together, it’s not terribly difficult, but it is something that is usually outside of their wheelhouse.
However, we also have seen in the past about two to three weeks, I believe it was, was the Chinese sent a military cohort to Belarus, to participate in Russian and Belarusian military drills from a land-based and army-based perspective there. So, I think this might be a continuation of that, on the Air Force side of things doing patrols.
So, to see the logistics starting to be hammered out is something that we haven’t really seen before. And given the fact that the Chinese have explicitly stated that they don’t want allies, that is something that is concerning.
What I’m going to be looking at, over the next probably year or two, and following is these sorts of activities and how integrated the two end up becoming? Are they kind of just talking to each other when they both just, you know, send off these planes on a mission? Or is there some sort of streamlined sort of leadership role where one of them is playing second fiddle to the other for one mission, and you know, they kind of flip flop back and forth. Is there an integration there? Or are they kind of just working together sort of thing? So that’s what I’m really going to be looking at.
And the difference between the two, of course, if they’re just kind of working together, and they all have their own leaderships telling them what to do, but they’re in constant communication, that is certainly more than we’ve seen in the past. However, it does create some logistical problems if they ever tried to get into a hot war, because now you’re adding an extra layer of communication that could break down.
If they start integrating, then that would certainly be very much a concern for the Americans, because then the integration side of things, which the Americans tend to be much better at with regards to – especially to European allies, and all the training we’ve done through NATO with regards to that. Integration between the Russian and the Chinese would be very much a problem. I’m highly skeptical of that simply because neither of them really wants to start playing second fiddle to either of them. So yeah, that’s what I’m looking at over the course of the next probably year or so.
So, while China flying a pair of its knock-off Russian bombers near U.S. airspace isn’t all that concerning or unexpected on its own,
the real risk factor lies in just how cozy Russia and China decide to get.
