Trump and Erdogan meet at the White House.
According to the Daily Mail, flight tracking shows a fleet of US air tankers crossing the Atlantic Ocean as US President Donald Trump prepares to meet with generals and admirals today.
Around a dozen KC-135R/T tanker aircraft were reportedly flying on Sunday evening, with some heading to a major US air base in the UK. The presence of the air tankers could be a sign that the US or NATO is responding to an urgent military need to increase the capacity to refuel fighter jets.
A former US State Department adviser told the Daily Mail that one possibility is that the US is responding to Russian reconnaissance and drone flights in the Baltic Sea, particularly over Denmark, just days after the country’s largest airport was forced to close.
“Denmark’s inability to defend its airspace reinforces White House concerns that it is unable to protect the much larger and more remote territory of Greenland from joint Chinese and Russian air and sea patrols in the emerging Arctic strategic competition,” said John Sitilidis, senior national security fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The U.S. military’s current movements could also be related to Cobra Warrior 25-2, a major NATO exercise taking place over the North Sea from September 12 to October 2. The biennial exercise could explain the noticeable increase in air activity as allied forces practice integrated military operations.