Emerging Alliance; Israel, India and Six NATO States Jointly Carry Out the Largest Air Force Drills of 2017

The Air Forces of Israel, India, the United States, Poland, Greece, France, Italy and Germany have undertaken sizable joint drills in early November 2017 in Israel's Negev desert. Called the Blue Flag exercises, these were the largest in the history of the Israeli Air Force and projected a fictional war between 'Falcon Land' and 'Nowhere Land.' There was little doubt however that the were simulating a war between a Western-Israeli alliance against a Russian military client - with Israeli F-16s simulating the Air Force of Nowhere Land based on the capabilities of Russian Sukhois and MiGs. Israeli Air Force SAM missile batteries and drones also simulated a hostile force using advanced Russian arms.

The Israeli Air Force's Col. Itamar, heavily involved in the exercises and commander of the Ovda airbase where they took place, stated that the scenarios were designed to be generic practice for a wide variety of combat scenarios. Col. Itamar claimed that though simulated adversaries "imitated the tactics that will give our blue guys' the best exercise," the exercises were not a direct attempt to simulate a war between any particular parties. This came in response to speculation that the drills were simulating a war between an Israeli-Western bloc against Iran. While Iran's Air Force does not field Sukhoi fighters, and has limited numbers of MiG fighters, largely from the Iraqi Air Force which fled to the country 1991, there have been several reports that the the Islamic Republic plans to upgrade its Air Force with more modern Russian platforms such as the Su-30MKII in the near future.

According to the Israeli Air Force the purpose of Blue Flag was to improve diplomatic relations and cement military ties between the eight participating countries - as well exposing all parties to emerging new aerial warfare tactics. With exercises taking place in Israel's far south in the Negev Desert, the barren land was ideal for such large scale exercises. While the simulated aerial dogfights and SAM missile launches did not use real ammunition, for simulated air to ground strikes actual bombs were dropped in the desert.

Continued in Part Two