Russia plans to send long-range bombers to the Gulf of Mexico in what
appears to be Moscow's latest provocative maneuver in its increasingly frosty
relations with the West.
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Wednesday that
"we have to maintain (Russia's) military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the
Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico" -- including sending bombers "as
part of the drills."
It's an argument U.S. officials don't seem to be
buying.
"We do not see the security environment as
warranting such provocative and potentially destabilizing activity," Continue...
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki offered
a similar response.
"We don't think there is a
current situation in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific or the Caribbean
and the Gulf of Mexico that warrants additional flights in out-of-area
territory," she told reporters.
That's not all.
Shoigu said that Russia will also
boost its security in Crimea, the region it annexed from Ukraine earlier this
year.
"In many respects, this is
connected with the situation in Ukraine, with fomentation of anti-Russian moods
on the part of NATO and reinforcement of foreign military presence next to our
border," he said.
The ceasefire in volatile eastern
Ukraine is crumbling, with U.S. and allied officials accusing Moscow of sending
fresh troops, tanks and other military equipment across the border in recent
days -- something that Russian officials have strongly denied.
But what does that have to do with
the Gulf of Mexico, some 6,000 miles away?
The Russians are clearly trying to
make a point with their plan to send bombers toward the Gulf of Mexico, said
Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. The message, he said, is "connected to the tensions over Ukraine
that have also affected the broader relationship."
"It's kind of a
reciprocity," Mankoff told CNN. "They see us trying to muscle in on
what they see as their sphere of influence. (Russia is likely thinking), 'If
they can do it to us, we can do it them.'"
Shoigu also said Russia will expand
its presence in the Arctic region, which could affect Alaska and northern
Canada.
This includes full radar coverage of
that region by year's end, leaving Russia ready "to meet unwanted
guests" both from the north and east by 2015, Shoigu said, according to a state-run
TASS news agency report.
That means Russia's new drills will
fly near most of America's coastline, said Barry Pavel, an international
security expert at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank.
"We're talking about ringing
the United States, with the exception of the Canadian border, where the Russian
bombers don't need to go," Pavel said.
Russian planes flew near U.S. before
It's not as though the United States
doesn't have its own warplanes in places like Japan and Turkey, not to mention NATO air operations
assisting Albania, Slovenia and Baltic nations. And Mankoff, who previously
served as a U.S. State Department adviser on U.S.-Russia relations, notes that
the U.S. military also sometimes flies not far from Russia -- also to send a
message, as well as to test things like response times.
"It's not necessarily anything
to be overly alarmed about as long as the patrols stay in international
airspace," he said.
And, as recently as June, U.S.
fighter jets have intercepted Russian long-range bombers off Alaska and
California.
Those four Russian planes flew
within an area 200 miles from the North American coast. Two peeled off and
headed west, while the other two flew south and were intercepted by U.S. F-15s
within 50 miles of the California coast.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for
the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said at the time that
this was the first time U.S. jets intercepted Russian military aircraft off California
in about two years. But such incidents generally are not uncommon, with Davis
estimating that Russian flights fly into the so-called air defense zone -- the
area 200 miles from the U.S. coast but not within the 13.8 miles that
international law would define as U.S. territory -- 10 times a year.
Yet there are signs that Russia has
stepped up its military provocations as of late, some of which the European
Leadership Network documented earlier this week.
Russian provocations on the rise: Is it a new
Cold War?
Last month, the Swedish military
searched for a mystery underwater vessel after intercepting an emergency radio
call in Russian and getting reports about a foreign vessel being spotted in the
waters near Stockholm. Though no vessel was found, it was the largest submarine
hunt in Swedish waters since the end of the Cold War.
In September, the United States intercepted six Russian
planes, including fighter jets and tankers,
in airspace near Alaska, officials said.
The same month, an Estonian official was
abducted from a border post, taken to
Moscow and accused of espionage, sparking dueling claims between the two
nations.
The uptick in incidents have raised
concerns about safety -- and about military and geopolitical issues, Pavel
said.
"Russia (is) flexing its
military muscle, identifying the United States and NATO as the enemy. That
feeling is not reciprocated, but we have a Russia that is starting to throw its
military weight around, and in some ways, looking for provocations," he
said. "I think this could be very dangerous, and create a crisis, where
one didn't need to exist."
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