×
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING? A couple of Russian Tu-95s (very rough equivalents of USAF B-52s) apparently buzzed Guam on Wednesday:
A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force. "It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet [U.S.] aircraft carriers and greet [U.S. pilots] visually," Androsov told a news conference."Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews paid a visit to the area of the [U.S. Pacific Naval Activities] base of Guam," he said.This is probably an effort to signal something, although as always, it's not completely clear what the message is. The Russian military may be trying to indicate that it's fully in the process of emerging from its post-Cold War funk. To the extent that he has a hand in this, Putin may be trying to give further warning to the US about missile defense etc. The problem with Russia watching (or Iran watching) is that so many different actors may be trying to convey so many different messages that it's really hard to understand what's going on. Incidentally, see Duck of Minerva for a nice discussion of Russia's oil problem. Russia is a huge producer of both oil and natural gas, but only has substantial reserves of the latter. This helps explain why Russia has become increasingly twitchy about the discount oil deals that Belarus and others have enjoyed, and suggests that this late resurgence of Russian military assertiveness may be more of an Indian summer than a spring. --Robert Farley
