Russian bomber jets resume Cold War sorties

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Russian bomber jets resume Cold War sorties
Thu Aug 9, 2007 9:21AM EDT

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's strategic bombers have resumed
their Cold War practice of flying long-haul missions to areas
patrolled by NATO and the United States, top generals said on
Thursday.

A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. military base on the Pacific
island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with U.S.
pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Major-General Pavel
Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force.

"It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to
fly far into the ocean, to meet (U.S.) aircraft carriers and greet
(U.S. pilots) visually," Androsov told a news conference.

"Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews
paid a visit to the area of the (U.S. Pacific Naval Activities)
base of Guam," he said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0982324620070809

[Turbineguy]

1. If Bush

can get the Russians to attack the US he won't need Osama bin Laden's crew anymore.

[Purveyor]

2. Anyone other than myself believe that Putin has had enough of the

judeo-christian 'crusades' and more than subtly, drawing a 'line in the sand'?

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. I agree. I think he is beginning to realize just how.....

dangerous bush and cheney really are.
He won't be taking any changes.

[Xithras]

12. Putin said the west was in "mortal danger" from Islam, so I doubt that.

Russia has been engaged in a protracted war with the Muslims in Chanchnya and surrounding territories, and Putin has always been a hardliner with them. I really doubt he has any objection to the concept of another crusade.

"The Russian leader said at a European Union summit in Brussels that western civilisation faced a mortal threat from Muslim terrorists, and claimed that they had plans to create a "worldwide caliphate"."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/12/wput12.xml

What Putin is doing is attempting to re-assert Russian power. He has stated many times that he thinks the US needs a counterbalance to prevent it from running amok, and that he doesn't believe that we've had one since the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia and China are really the only two nations in the world capable of doing that right now, and Russia is the only one without strong economic times (a US/China war would devastate the Chinese economy...not so with Russia). Over his term, Putin has been slowly reactivating former military bases, has funneled more money into weapons R&D, has eliminated US funded atomic weapons decommisioning programs, and has been taking a progressively stronger position against Bush. He is NOT doing so to aid Iraq or Muslims, he's doing so because he sees Russia's role as the opposer of the US. Putin wants to bring the Cold War back as badly as Bush does.

[David__77]

13. Regardless of intention, an assertive Russia does help Iraqis.

Creating pressures elsewhere for the US certainly does raise the strategic cost to continuing the Iraqi occupation.

[napi21]

3. Well, Shrubbie just might have REALLY gotten his legacy by restarting

the Cold War between Russia and the US! He'll be rememberd alright! Maybe not in the way he wanted though!

[olddad56]

4. I doubt that they actually overflew the island....

I doubt that it was a bomber. How about an electronic surveillance plane on a routine recon mission. Sort of like we fly off of their coast every day.

Much ado about nothing.

[plasticsundance]

5. US fighters were scrambled to track it.

In addition, "resume" and "revive" I would imagine send red flags up for Nato and the US

[olddad56]

22. It is routine....

I flew in an outfit that did this for our side during the last cold war. Sometimes it was our job to get the other side to scramble fighters to chase us away. This is routine stuff.

[Eugene]

7. The Russians themselves say the planes were TU-95 "Bear" bombers

The "Bear" is a strategic bomber like the B-52.
During the Cold War, escorting Soviet bombers
out of NATO-patrolled airspace was a routine
chore.

If the Russians say they overflew Guam, they
probably did. It may not be a crisis, but
it is a step backward to the Bad Old Days.

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Recon Version?

This would be the same plane (model) that used to make routine flights down the Atlantic Coast.

[ohio2007]

15. that bear is no spring chicken

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USL0982324620070809&start=1

I'll bet they canibalized three bears to get this one up and running.

Probably using lemonade for hydraulic fluid emergency backup.

[Thothmes]

16. Bears

Probably the Bear "D". That is the long range recon version. the Bear "B" is the nuke launch/drop platform.

[olddad56]

24. They were bears, but they were configured for electronic surveillance.

They were using the same plane 40 years ago.

[TheLastMohican]

19. Exactly

The Russian pilots should train as well as ours do, right?
It is only a routine flight and everybody is screaming "Cold War". The public has become very edgy but the fact that Russia hasn't conducted such flights for the last 15 years don't tell anything to them.

[whistle]

8. Dick Cheney and Shrub* must be dancing around the bone-fires

...at the Crawford Ranch and Kenny-bunk-port and Montana. They are getting what they want, a hot cold war with a familiar adversary, Russia.

[Swede]

9. Good news for military contractors.

Not so,for the rest of us.

[One_Life_To_Give]

10. More so for some "Re-Aligned" Bases

IIRC The BRAC recommended closure of some bases that were used to Escort Sovie tBombers down the East Coast to Cuba.

[ohio2007]

14. Russia is not the Soviet Union.They are a hollow shell of what

they use to be.

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USL0982324620070809&start=1

they are either having an identity crises or Putin is longing for the good old days. He is calling the shots his way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGaYD40Gxu0&mode=related&search=%3A


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahm-6YDHMrc&mode=related&search=%3A

[Sherman A1]

17. Agreed

This was probably a one off.... stick it in your face kinda thing....

[TheLastMohican]

20. Hmm

Here is an interesting article from the yesterday's issue of the New York Times for those that have dropped off the face of the earth for the last 7 years. It is on the Russian economy and particularly the strength of the Russian currency.

Currently Russia is the 10th largest economy in the world with the third largest currency reserves ($430 billion) and the first largest per capita currency reserves in the world, with 7 years in a row annual budget surplus, and over $120 billion cushion put away for a rainy day. This year's GDP growth is estimated to be around 7.8% - for the last 7 years the annual economic growth fluctuated around 7%. According to Godman Sachs projections, Russia will be the 6th largest economy in the world by 2025.
Russia is not the Soviet Union, it will be much stronger economically than SU. It actually dropped out of the damaging Cold War to appear dead and fight another day on more favorable conditions to them.
When US is fighting some billion-dollar deficits, Russia doesn't know where to invest an incoming flood of money. The net investments into Russian economy in the first half of 2007 are 400 billion dollars, that's a lot for a country half the population of US.

So the level of ignorance on the subject of "weak and poor" Russia is no longer funny.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/bu...s/08ruble.html

[Tyler Durden]

21. I've said it before, I'll say it again.

The USSR as an "enemy" was predictable, and manageable.

Russia as a "republic" is a wild card. Another couple arms sales to Iran et al, and they can start rehabbing their Alpha and Kursk class Missile/Attack subs.

Russia in this incarnation has, on the scale of world history, 150-200 years to build up the empire before things start to decline. Such it is with Imperialist Hegemony.

[TheLastMohican]

25. Last I cheched

Russia is comfortably sitting within its borders, asking even their closest allies Belarus to pay a fair price for the gas. Now the boyking George is involved in Godknows how many world adventures of conquest and subjugation.

You should talk to the Russians sometimes. The general mood is: Americans with their foreign policy are not exactly the right people to tell what is right or wrong in this world.

What Russian Empire are you talking about? Russia is more or less settled on its own territory with the exception of Crimea which might go back to Russia, as it was Ukraine's grab when everything was falling apart.

[Tyler Durden]

27. Oh, no, you misinterpret my intent...

...or I misspoke it, I was eating at the time.

I'm inferring that WE should not be FUCKING with the Russians in their present state, as they are in ascendance and have got buckos or rubles to spend on an arms race, WE have been poking the bear with a stick since the Pig Bush messed with the ABM treaties and other idiocies too many to mention. And after that, to have THEM fuck with US should be of no surprise at all.

As to Imperialism comments, don't mind me: I'm a Socialist from way back. Any quasi capitalist society looks Imperialist to ME.

[TheLastMohican]

29. Quasi capitalist sounds good

I would term it "wild capitalist".

Now the "wild capitalist" Russia would be a much stronger adversary than Soveit Union ever was.
I agree with you, it was foolish of US to poke Russia every now and then, it is much better to have Russia as a friend, but it looks like having Russia as a friend would make all Bush buddies from the military-industrial complex go as poor as a church mouse.

[ohio2007]

23. 7th largest economy is deceptive. Graphing the 1st through 10th GDP #'s

you'll see the steep GDP drop off from 3rd down to 7th. ANd you'll notice just which countries are showing higher GDP then Russia.

[TheLastMohican]

26. Russia doesn't have to be 1st or 2nd

to stay in the race.

They have more value dollar for dollar than anything we have in terms of military hardware. They gave us a good run for our money in the last 50 years. Their planes, tanks and missles being as effective as ours, cost 1/10 of ours. Russia doesn't have (yet) a military-industrial corporatists who feed off other people in the country.
A bolt for the Mig-29 costs 25 kopeks and it will be 25 kopeks and not 25 dollars as our financial reports suggest.

It looks like Russia took a good lesson from overspending on military gadgets and is quickly rebuilding its economy. I don't know why people are so paranoid about Russia this and Russia that? US hangs with its planes near Russia's borders almost daily. The occurance is so usual that the Russians no longer report it.

[hedgehog]

18. Gee, we scrambled planes to track Russian bombers over Guam,

but I'd lay money down that we still couldn't scramble a plane to track a hijacked jet over the continental US.

[redqueen]

28. We still *wouldn't*, yeah.

We could have... but we didn't.