Posted on 08/09/2007 1:45:57 PM PDT by blam
Russian bombers buzz US base in Guam
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 7:36pm BST 09/08/2007
Russian bombers are reported to have buzzed an American military base for the first time since the Cold War when they flew over the Pacific island of Guam.
Google Map: The island of Guam in the West Pacific
Moscow said that US fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the two Tupolev-95 warplanes as they resumed the Cold War era practice of flying over Western offshore military installations in a mission on Wednesday.
The incident, seen as the latest attempt by a revitalised Russia to project its military might, is likely to have unnerved the Pentagon and caused further perplexity at the State Department over the Kremlin's mercurial course.
The US military was silent about the mid-air confrontation but the Russians were happy to boast about it.
"It was always the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet (US) aircraft carriers and greet (US) pilots visually," Maj Gen Pavel Androsov, the head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force, told a press conference in Moscow.
"Yesterday we revived this tradition."
According to the general, two Tupolev-95 bombers flew from Blagoveshchensk, on Russia's border with China, to the US naval base at Guam in the West Pacific during a 13-hour round trip on Wednesday.
Capable of carrying nuclear bombs, the Tu-95 was the Soviet Union's aviation icon. A lumbering beast, it was instantly recognisable to every US fighter pilot who had to escort the aircraft on its regular sorties down the American east coast.
A new generation of pilots may now have to get used to doing the same.
According to Gen Androsov, American fighters took off from an aircraft carrier and tracked the bombers until they left Guam's airspace. "We exchanged smiles and returned home," he said.
Russia's nuclear forces: Click for interactive map
The return of the airborne games of cat-and-mouse is likely to elicit queasier grins in Western capitals, where military chiefs will be puzzling over how to respond to Russia's increasingly frequent displays of defiance.
Last month RAF Tornado fighters were twice forced to scramble after Tu-95 bombers flew close to British airspace.
Keen to get their share of attention — and perhaps the approval of President Vladimir Putin — Russia's most senior admirals last week called for the establishment of a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean for the first time since the Cold War.
East-West relations also came under renewed strain after the United States appeared to blame Russia for a missile strike against Georgia on Monday that took the diplomatic crisis between the two ex-Soviet neighbours to new depths.
"The US condemns the Aug 6 rocket attack against Georgia," said Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman. "We praise Georgia's continuing restraint in the face of this air attack and call for the urgent clarification of the facts surrounding this incident."
Moscow has strongly denied involvement in the incident and has accused Georgia of "provocation".
Russia's military posturing is partly a desperate desire to show that the armed forces have recovered from the decline in the penurious 1990s, when planes were frequently grounded because the air force could not pay its fuel bills.
The vocal condemnation of Russia's mission last week to plant a flag under the North Pole, a stunt that would once have been laughed off, was a telling example of the international community's growing distrust of Mr Putin.
You mean Wi-ping Wei?
“At a time in history when the biggest threat facing both West and East is islamic fundamentalism, Pooty-Poot wants to dig into the past and revive the cold war.”
While we try to pull former SSR’s to our sphere of influence, even discussing NATO membership for some, and admitting former warsaw pact members to NATO already.
Obviously there is plenty of stuff the US and Russia do not have in common, nor are likely to, and that chess game continues.
This seems familiar.
Didn't the Chinese do this?
Not again. Cold War II ?
We’d better get Wake Island up and running again before the Russians decide to take it over.
“Hat In The Ring” is getting 22’s!
Very cool.
I just like the idea of the Bear crew looking out the hatch at something that can kill them and isn’t even alive.
Why would that make them crap their pants. A Global Hawk wouldn’t be able to keep up with a Tu-95MS.
Looks like the Tu-95s never came close enough to warrant an intercept.
http://www.kuam.com/news/23950.aspx
http://www.kuam.com/news/23941.aspx
Either you are a "superpower" or you are not.
Doubtless Putin sees that the restoration of 'face' to an entire people, even under a different label, has certain value for a despot.
The one Russian I have been on a drillsite with thought Stalin was a great guy.
The failures and atrocities are readily overlooked by those seeking a "strong leader", so long as the atrocities are aimed elsewhere, at someone else.
It is part and parcel of the "Go team, go!" pep-rally mentality which often dominates political debate here, just ramped up a few notches.
As long as their guy is percieved as a "winner", and their nation is too, much unforgiveable will be forgiven or overlooked.
I am no shrink, but it seems as if the same sort of cultural phenomenon happened in Germany and helped bring the Nazis into power behind another 'strongman' who was rebuilding his country's perception of self-respect.
Maybe I am wrong, and calling this on too little data, but I think we are just beginning to see the Russia of the future, and it is particularly testing our level of resolve after years of bombardment by the MSM at home.
Besides, if we are 'surprised' by an older style weapons platform, then what does that say for all our technology?
Mike
Let them have their little "show" and put flags on the ocean floor if it makes them feel better. People still want to be free and the commies are still on the wrong side of humanity.
Agreed, but our media braying the alleged existence of a 'nutless' America, one with insufficient resolve to finish what we are doing in Iraq--at all levels according to the MSM, has its unintended consequences as well.
Even if we were a paper tiger, if the media stood foursquare behind America and presented an image of strength instead of one of cowardice and weakness, no nation would dare such acts of provocative defiance.
Unfortunately, as our cheerleaders cheer for the other side, such incidents will increase, and sooner or later, there will be an incident.
You can hear them coming! loudest plane in the world.
The bear is the fastest prop plane in the world. How about we dust off some Phantoms from Tucson instead?
Perhaps a B-2 dropping love letters over Moscow on a Friday night. “We can see you, but you can’t see us”.
Not older than our B-52’s
It is an excellent frame design, much like the B-52. If the Russkies put some serious jet engines on it, it would look similar to the Buff. Hmmmm....
LOL. Thanks for the blast from the past.
Maybe a stealth bomber should visit Leningrad. At night. In rain.==
They will shoot it down in easy. You will be sorry:).
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