Back to the Future
 

It appears that the Russians have restarted the cold war practice of
patrolling the edges of American air space. Back to the good old days :rolleyes:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/08/09/russia.sorties.reut/

What in blazes for?? Who has the money for such frivolous things nowadays?

While the US is busy expending our military and economic resources on a 5 year campaign that has accomplished little to nothing, our real "enemies" are getting much bolder. A serious confrontation in the foreseeable future is unavoidable IMO. The only consolation in that is at least we'll know what country are enemies reside.

What enemies are you talking about? Be specific, don't rant.

A flyover and a wave is hardly a confrontation and as the Ruskie said they never stopped doing these exercises.

hurray

Not ranting, just being aware of another shift in cold war politics, and not specifcally limited to the Russians.

So what? Must have been a slow news day. I'm sure this stuff has been happening, since well forever.

damn it. i was reading this thread, scrolled down and about smacked my monitor..your bug in your sig..thought it was real.

me too.

Whenever there are any military exercises, count on the "uninvited" nations to party crash. Mostly they're just watching and listening and having a grand time observing the reaction. It's not as if NATO or CINCPAC resources don't do the same thing.

Yes, not quite forever, but at least since the 60's.
Back then, it was common practice to have a carrier be overflown by a Russian Bear when it sailed to the Med. Mabe it occured in the Pacific also. I don't know.
So, we would spot them, and launch a couple of F-4 Phantoms or whatever that carrier had aboard to observe, "wave" (which usually meant giving the bird) and fly away. Cold war two-step.
This picture is from around 1982 and shows a Russian TU95 being shadowed by an F14 Tomcat from the USS America probably under a scenario similar to that described above.
But the Bear TU95 was over-flying the US Navy going back to the 60's. Occurred during my time on a carrier in '66&67..
Kinda interesting they still are flying the same twin turboprop long range bombers. from 40 years ago. I wonder if they have made as many mods to it as the USAF has made to the B52, which has been up there since the 50's.
It is also cheaper to send these out for reconn. than it is to keep more submarines around to do this.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...anBearTU95.jpg

Simple solution........

Just invite the Ruskies to land at Guam for refueling.

Problem solved, plus we make a few bucks, and we get to spy on their airplane.

Remember, this is the same cast of characters that refused assistance for days when the Kursk exploded and sank, entombing a number of men who survived the blast.:eek:

I don't think they're going to stoop to gassin' up at the EXXON GUAM.:D