Russian Saber-Rattling In The Sky

Like a red flag taunting a bull, Russian jet fighters, bombers and tankers flew over the Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea this week - very close to European airspace but never entering those zones.  NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)  immediately scrambled F-16 fighters to intercept the unidentified aircraft.  So far this year, NATO has ordered 100 intercepts of Russian planes - 3 times more than in 2013.  General Ray Odierno, the American Army's Chief of Staff called the flights "Russian aggression".  "I think they are trying to reassert themselves, we have to watch them very carefully."  Russia claims the aircraft were just engaged in "manoeuvers".

But if we track just one intercept, we can understand why NATO countries are nervous.  On Wednesday, for example, 8 Russian aircraft flew over the North Sea heading west.  Norway scrambled F-16 fighters to identify them.  Six Russian planes turned back but 2 bombers headed southwest towards the U.K.  British fighter command scrambled 2 Typhoons.  The bombers continued south into the Atlantic Ocean, where Portugal scrambled their F-16's.  The bombers continued southward and were still airborne, 13 hours after they were first detected.

Of course these harassment flights don't pose any "clear and present danger"  in a military sense, but they do threaten civilian aircraft.  The Russians often don't file flight plans or use on board transponders, which means civilian air-traffic control can't detect them.  Considering the dozens of commercial jets that fly the same international airspace, the Russian actions are reckless and extremely dangerous.

If confrontations like these ones - in the air, on national borders, land grabs under the Arctic Ocean don't stop, there will be a serious incident one day leading to ?  Remember, World War I  started when one man was shot in a small village called Sarajevo in a small country called Serbia.  That was the spark that killed 16 million people.