Ivan Wants To Play
Russky bombers buzz Guam, smile at scrambled U.S. fighters:
MOSCOW - In a provocative show of military power, Russian bombers flew this week to Guam - home to major U.S. military bases - and “exchanged smiles” with U.S. fighter pilots who scrambled to intercept them, a Russian air force general said yesterday.
“Whenever we saw U.S. planes during our flights over the ocean, we greeted them,” Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov said. “We exchanged smiles with our counterparts who flew up from a U.S. carrier and returned home.”
The Guam flight was part of a three-day exercise that saw Russian bombers making 40 sorties and launching eight cruise missiles, said Androsov.
Ivans have some dough to spend, sense our weakness, and never much liked it when the world finally figured out the commie superpower was a nuclear-armed Potemkin village. Would like to be taken seriously again, and as a source of international mischief, inconvenience and meddling, should be.
Here’s Stratfor re same:
The story of Russia in the 17 years since the Cold War ended has been one of precipitous decline economically, politically, militarily and demographically. However, during President Vladimir Putin’s two terms, Russia has arrested — and haltingly reversed — the first three declines. This does not mean the Russians have truly turned the corner — the economy is more addicted to commodity exports than ever before, the Kremlin is closer to political ossification than the “efficiency” of a true autocracy, and new or well-maintained military equipment is certainly not the norm — but a floor has definitely been inserted under the country, halting the fall.
Military reform has been under way for some time. That the Russian army has professionalized itself down below 200,000 conscripts is, in and of itself, an amazing achievement. But while deliberate, the task remains daunting, and the pace slow. Yet even if Russia had stopped its military research and development programs — which it did not — even late-Soviet military technology would leave Russia in a unique military position. And as the recent military adventurism vividly demonstrates, there is a pattern in Russian actions: the incidents are not isolated, and there is no direction in which the Russians are not pushing out. This is a strategy that has an excitingly (and disturbingly) familiar feel to it.
The American Cold War strategy of “containment” was not something dreamed up on some idle Tuesday. The geography of the former Soviet Union is hostile not just to economic and political development, but also to military expansion. Vast interior distances make the transport of armies as difficult as that of goods, while natural maritime choke points like the Japanese Islands, the Turkish straits and “The Sound” between Sweden and Denmark naturally limit Moscow’s naval reach — and have for centuries. The bottom line for the United States was that by aligning with all of Russia’s neighbors, it could force the Soviet Union to focus on building tanks to defend is mass — because Moscow never knew from which direction an attack (or multiple attacks) would come.
…
Though the Cold War ended, containment never really did, and it has been nearly a generation since the Russians tested their cage. Russia — and the world — has changed in fundamental ways. But ultimately the biggest difference between now and 1991 is not so much Russia’s relative weakness or America’s relative preoccupation with Iraq, but Washington’s list of allies. It is longer — and less militarily capable — than ever.And therein lies the rub. The real key to containment was not the belt of Russian border states, but the American commitment to guarantee their security. What ultimately made containment work was the belief that the United States would be willing to meet Russia on the field of battle wherever and whenever Moscow pushed. Washington utterly lacked the freedom to decline any fight for fear that the entire alliance structure of containment would unravel. The most famous examples of these tests of American resolve are the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
…
Ultimately, the disparity between Androsov’s announcement and the Pentagon’s bureaucratic reply is symptomatic of the way each nation sees its old Cold War adversary. Pentagon planners do not talk about Russia like they used to. They do — and not without some cause — crack jokes, something that is actually rather easy to do when one considers that the propeller-driven Tu-95s, designed in the early 1950s, were “intruding” on the newest fighter jets in the world, zipping supersonically around Guam.
But the simple truth of the matter is that Russia is one of only two countries in the world that can casually move strategic offensive weapons like the air-launched AS-15 cruise missiles across the face of the planet. The Tu-95 is certainly not a top-shelf plane these days — but when it’s carrying a highly accurate cruise missile with an 1,800-mile range and a nuclear warhead, it doesn’t have to be.
All this one week after crazy Ivan ocean floor landgrab.
Meanwhile, in other Russky news, Georgia and the Ivans dicker over incursion, missile claim. Georgia wants to put it in front of the UN Security Council.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:06 am on Friday, August 10, 2007
3 Responses to “Ivan Wants To Play”
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August 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Hm. A wakeup call that maybe Europe and certain Asian nations ought to get off their duffs and see about self-defense for a change?
August 10th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Imperial Russia rises from the ashes of the Soviet Union. What a surprise that is. Too bad Russia couldn’t hack capitalism, and slid down into autocracy.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
The thugs have been in control for too long; first the communist thugs, and now the thugs the communists built in their prisons.