Joint exercises between Russia and China and a recent joint bomber patrol that violated South Korean airspace add a new, worrisome wrinkle to US security posture in the Indo-Pacihc region, as does growing competition at the North and South Poles, the head of Pacific Air Forces said. PACAF Commander Gen. Charles Q. Brown, at an AFA Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event, said the July 23 bomber patrol-in which Chinese H-6s and Russian Tu-95s flew together around Japan and South Korea, penetrating the Korean air defense identification zone and prompting intercepts from Japanese and South Korean fighters-is "a potential harbinger of things that could happen in the future."
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