Posted on 10/11/2007 7:38:55 AM PDT by Kurt_Hectic
Norway's military has felt it necessary to dispatch fighter jets 29 times so far this year, to monitor Russian military flights offshore. Now it's emerged that at least one of the Russian aircraft was equipped with a cruise missile.
Newspaper Aftenposten carried a photo of the Russian Tupolev 22 bomber on its front page on Thursday. The photo was taken by a Norwegian fighter jet crew sent out to monitor the flights of two such aircraft about seven weeks ago.
Military officials say the two Russian flights were in "classic position" to fire cruise missiles off Bodø, but both turned away before reaching Norwegian territory, 12 nautical miles from land.
The maneuvers were said to be "unusual," and part of a series of Russian flights in recent months that many are beginning to view as "sabre-rattling" on the part of Russian officials keen to assert their authority in the area.
Norwegian military officials are quick to note that the missile incident wasn't considered a direct provocation. Tor Sandlie, chief of NATO's air operations in northern Norway, told Aftenposten that "we look at this as normal training activity."
On the agenda
The heightened Russian activity is being closely watched, however, and was a topic of talks this week among the foreign ministers of Norway, Sweden and Finland in the northern city of Bodø. There, they received a briefing from military brass inside a NATO facility.
While 29 Russian military flights have been photographed, an equal number haven't been. The Russian activity over the Barents, Norwegian and North Seas has extended as far south as Great Britain, and it's increasing, but remains nowhere near the scale of activity during the Cold War.
Foreign Ministers Ilkka Kanerva of Finland, Carl Bildt of Sweden and Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway agreed that the activity doesn't appear aimed at the Nordic countries and that it can be considered part of legitimate training operations. Local politicians hope residents of northern Norway won't be frightened by the flights, and instead view them merely as Russian officials' desire to demonstrate that they once again have military muscle.
The ministers, meanwhile, expressed solidarity and cooperation on security issues in the north, with Kanerva of Finland noting that among the three countries, "there aren't any foreign or security policy questions that can't be discussed."
Related stories: Norway faces Russian challenge - 04.10.2007 More Russian jets appear off the northern coast - 20.09.2007 Russians sent more bombers - 20.08.2007 Russian flights raised concern - 20.07.2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raduga_Kh-22
And here's a link to aftenposten TV, an interesting video of Russian bombers and a tanker on mission, taken by Norwegian F-16s:
http://nettv.aftenposten.no/player/player.php?id=5939&bandwidth=11135619
Thanks! I really have to improve my posting skills! I still don’t know how to post pictures...
I wouldn’t want to mess with Vikings.
< then img src=”http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00618/_tupolev_bruk_jpg_618517a.jpga >
And then the Americans finally eliminated the Soviet threat? And all of Europe breathed a sigh of relief?
And suddenly the Americans couldn't get Europe on the phone?
And then they found out that not only did the Europeans considered the Americans a bunch of tasteless, upstart, parvenu bumpkins, which everybody knew they had considered the Americans to be all along, but that they also considered the U.S.A. to be the Great Satan?
Do you suppose that, if the Ghost of the Soviet Union should return and reestablish itself, with its vast and unpredictable nuclear arsenal, the U.S.A. will once again become Europe's dearest friend? And the Americans will once again become charming, if naive, bumpkins?
I was thinking the same thing...
It is time the world learned how tough life is without America guarding their sleeping children.
But if the anti-Americans, both domestic and foreign, should succeed, the world will long for America and her benevolence, and the children, who now sleep so safely, will curse their parents.
You pose some interesting questions, but if Europe cannot see the threat that exists from terrorism, what makes you think they'd feel differently about a challenge from Russia?
Exactly! I can only hope that the USA will still be our closest ally if that scenario materialises. I have a feeling that the bond across the Atlantic is so strong that anti-American european socialists cannot easily destroy it, but there is a threat that the American “spirit” in this matter: - the will do defend Europe - will vanish as the decades pass by and the socialists/anti-Americans fail to recognise,- and give gratitude to - USA as the sole stabilisator in the world today.
This is the biggest reason why I consider norwegian socialists to be my enemy: they are a danger to Norway’s security and the good, brotherly relation Norway should have with USA, both the American people as well as the American government.
Socialists are unrealistic and ungrateful piss-ants! Always have been, always will!
Frankly, I think that you are right. The bond between Europe and North America is far too strong to be severed. North America is culturally--and most North American people are genealogically--European. The tie is powerful and taken for granted.
The Marxist, anti-American decadence that has infected Europe has also infected North America. (That's how close the two continents are.) In the U.S., the Democrat Party is its political machine; the "Mainstream Newsmedia" is its propaganda machine. Let's hope that this decadence goes the way of the brontosaurus and the dodo bird--and the Black Plague pandemics that it so closely resembles--and the National Socialist movement that it also so closely resembles.
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