Jets on highways: Why European militaries are expanding ‘dispersed’ road exercises

Beyond working out the practical kinks in road-based operations, analyst Justin Bronk said the exercises also send a message to a target audience to the east. “The motivation behind the ops is partly to gather data on the opportunities and pitfalls of highway operations for air forces that have not done these in a long time, and partly to signal to Russia that they are taking serious steps to make their forces harder to target in a major war,” said Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK defense think tank.