From the Sea ... and From Land, Too

Valiant Shield 2006 wrapped up last month off of Guam. About 200 Navy aircraft from three carrier battle groups took part. As did over 50 Air Force planes including B-2s, F-15s, F-16s, B-52s, and support aircraft, and 6 Marine Corps F-18s, who operated off of Guam. I think somve Navy F-18s must have been on Guam, too. Some stories say over 300 aircraft while others mention numbers under 300.

One story says F-22s took part in a recent exercise called Northern Edge, too. That's interesting. They operated with the B-2s simulating knocking out enemy air defenses. The B-2s will not rotate out of Guam until September.

Navy SEALs are mentioned as are Army forces but I didn't see anything about what the Army guys were doing. Perhaps just headquarters types. The SEAL participation is odd for a Pacific-based contingency.

Submarines and surface ships took part, too. Part of the exercise involved anti-submarine warfare.

Further, while having Strike Eagles practice attacking naval targets was undoubtedly intended to leave an impression on the PLA observers, I can't help but think that an exercise bringing air power from the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps was as much a practice run for what it would take to hit Iran as a Pacific-oriented exercise. And Iran has submarines we'd want to take out.

So if we hit Iran in the near future, look for three carriers to support air power from Diego Garcia and the whole Gulf region hitting Iran from close to 360 degrees. Given precision weapons and our air assets on land bases in the region, I don't believe we'd need the 6-7 carriers we've seen used in the past against Saddam's Iraq. It will be much easier to gather three carriers in the Arabian Sea than six without attracting excessive attention.

We have to practice before striking. Whether done openly or under another guise, we must rehearse. Was this a major drill for Iran?