Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military. The episode has echoes of the cold war era, when the United States and the Soviet Union regularly parked submarines off each other’s coasts to steal military secrets, track the movements of their underwater fleets — and be poised for war. ------------------- One of the submarines is the newer Akula II, officials said, which is...

Moscow accused the United States of hysteria today after reports that Russian nuclear submarines were patrolling off the East Coast of America. Russian officials responded vehemently to accusations that they were dabbling in Cold War-style cat-and-mouse manoeuvring but did not deny that two vessels had entered international waters just 200 miles of the US coast. “Activities of Russian submarines in the world’s oceans outside their own waters do not violate international maritime law and are within normal practice,” a military-diplomatic source told the Russian state media. US defence and intelligence officials told the New York Times that two Akula class...

MOSCOW – A top Russian general says two nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines that have been spotted off the U.S. East Coast are part of regular patrols. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, says the patrols are not newsworthy.

You know what this calls for? An Obama speech in Red Square about the common humanity that unites us in a struggle for blah blah blah blah. But the collapse of the Soviet Union all but eliminated the ability of the Russian Navy to operate far from home ports, making the current submarine patrols thousands of miles from Russia even more surprising for military officials and defense policy experts. “I don’t think they’ve put two first-line nuclear subs off the U.S. coast in about 15 years,” said Norman Polmar, a naval historian and expert on submarine warfare… The submarine patrols...

WASHINGTON — A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States over recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military. The episode has echoes of the cold war era, when the United States and the Soviet Union regularly parked submarines off each other’s coasts to steal military secrets, track the movements of their underwater fleets — and be poised for war. But the collapse of the Soviet Union all but eliminated the ability of the...