During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) questioned Matthew L. Lohmeier, nominee to be Under Secretary of Air Force, about incursions into Alaska from foreign adversaries.
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00:00Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lomer, I'm going to cover kind of the topics that you and I talked about in my office a couple days ago.
00:13First of all, I like to ask nominees, maybe I'll ask all of you. Billy Mitchell was testifying in front of the, I think it was Senate Armed Services Committee, the father of the U.S. Air Force in the mid-1930s.
00:26He was talking about a certain place in the world. He called it the most strategic place on the planet, and whoever controlled that place would control the world.
00:34Mr. Lomer, I'll start with you as an Air Force guy. Do you know where Billy Mitchell was talking about?
00:39I do, Senator.
00:41What place was he talking about?
00:42It was the state of Alaska.
00:43Great. Can I get that confirmation from the two other witnesses?
00:47Yes, Senator, you can.
00:48Most strategic place in the world?
00:50Great. Good. You guys are starting out really well here. Thank you.
00:53And our adversaries also see it as quite strategic.
00:58This is a depiction of the Russian and Chinese incursions into our ATIS and into our EEZ in the last two and a half years.
01:10I'm going to flip that over and show you the numbers.
01:14It's like several.
01:17That's in the last two and a half years.
01:18It's pretty remarkable.
01:20It doesn't make a lot of news in the lower 48 in our airspace, northern airspace.
01:26And the green, the green ones are depictions of joint strategic bomber task forces and joint U.S.
01:35I'm sorry, Russia-Chinese naval incursions.
01:39So they're doing joint ops in the northern Pacific in Alaska, okay?
01:44Just a couple, two weeks ago.
01:48So, Mr. Lomer, I want to, you're a former F-15 pilot.
01:54You can put the other slide up.
01:55When you do an intercept mission, say, from Alaska, how tough are those missions?
01:59Our guys do them all the time.
02:01Every one of those incursions, we intercepted them with F-22s, F-16s, F-35s.
02:07How tough of a mission if you're flying from J-Bear or Eilson Air Force Base out to the ATIS here?
02:13Is that a tough mission?
02:15Yeah, Senator, the seat in the F-15 and even in our newest fighters isn't comfortable when you're spending hours in there hitting the tanker multiple times.
02:22So you're hitting a tanker probably four or five times just to go do the intercept, correct?
02:26Correct.
02:27And sometimes in the middle of the night in February, you're doing an intercept up there, Chuck Chisey.
02:36If you're in a single-engine F-16 intercepting Russian Bear bombers in the middle of the night in February,
02:42and you've got to punch out, you lose an engine, how likely are you going to survive in that?
02:48Senator, those are incredibly high-risk missions, and we've got great men and women who put their necks on the line every day
02:53doing just exactly what you've described.
02:57And especially if you're having to punch out in that environment, you're not in a good position.
03:03No.
03:03So what the North Com Commander and the Indo-Pay Com Commander and even the CNO of the Navy has said,
03:08we need more infrastructure up here to support these missions because they keep saying,
03:13we're going to, the Russians and Chinese are going to keep doing this even more.
03:18So would you work with me and this committee on those goals?
03:22We're looking at ADAC as a Navy base with two 8,000-foot airstrips.
03:31We're looking at a hangar up at Utyavik, that's Barrow, to be able to station search and rescue operations,
03:38or Galena, that was a former Air Force base.
03:42Would you work with me and this committee on looking at that kind of infrastructure that can support
03:48the men and women in Alaska who are literally on the front lines of great power competition
03:55doing these kind of missions, you know, just a couple weeks ago?
03:59Hard missions, our military up in Alaska do such a great job,
04:02but can you support me and this committee and working on those infrastructure projects
04:08that the two combatant commanders in this region, Indo-Pay Com and North Com,
04:13have testified that they need?
04:15Yes, Senator, I share your interest in this area.
04:22This is, in many respects, a cornerstone of our projection of power into the Indo-Pacific Theater,
04:27and you have my commitment to work very closely with you on what the Secretary and I are trying to do
04:34from a basing perspective and infrastructure perspective in the Department of the Air Force, if confirmed.
04:40Let me ask one final question.
04:41The Secretary nominee in his testimony also committed to me, the Air Force has committed to me
04:49and this committee for about eight or nine years now, to get more tankers up at Eielson.
04:56The last Secretary of the Air Force did, the previous Secretary of the Air Force did, Democrats, Republicans.
05:01Can you commit to me, as the Secretary just did, to work to get the four KC-135s that they've been promising,
05:08these brave men and women who need tanking capacity to go do these intercepts, real-world missions?
05:15Can you work with me and commit to me to getting those four KC-135s up the aisle?
05:19So maybe a compliment.
05:20Senator, I'll work, if confirmed.
05:23I commit to you that I will work to ensure that the commitments that Dr. Mink has made are fulfilled.
05:30Great. Thank you very much.
05:31Thank you, Mr. Chairman.