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BBC News reports:
Russian warplanes have made several close passes in recent days over a US destroyer sailing in the Black Sea, the Pentagon said. Russian state media reported that the USS Ross was acting "aggressively". The US Department of Defense, however, said the ship was "well within international waters at all times, performing routine operations". The US Navy released video on Monday of a Russian plane passing as close as 500 metres to the USS Ross.
A Pentagon spokesman went on to assert that the Russian Su-24 planes were not armed and that the USS Ross made no changes to it's course in response to the passes. Russian warplanes have been exercising pretty hard lately with airborne intercepts by NATO forces increasing dramatically over recent months. In a previous story, also from BBC News, defence correspondent Jonathan Beale stated that the Royal Air Force is intercepting Russian planes approaching UK airspace with their transponders disabled on a monthly basis. Although no rules have been broken regarding sovereignty of international airspace or territorial waters, tensions have obviously increased, as have submarine patrols and exercises by both Russia and NATO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2015, @09:43PM
The problem with that is any time anything bad happens in the world and the US is not involved, they get the blame for not stopping it. Every time Europe wants to do something militarily they expect the US to do it and practically beg the US to put force down whil;e simultaneously telling the populous how terrible the US for being the arrogant world police. Then there is all the disaster relief that is not just expected but demanded of the US military.
This whole world police thing will stop as soon as other countries start taking responsibility for their own military ambitions and defense measures.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 02 2015, @09:50PM
We wouldn't want that to happen. They would be perceived as a threat.
See: China
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:46AM
The reason people gripe about the USA getting involved in other countries' conflicts is because our government/military only does it when it suits their economic or political interests, not when people need our help — and far too many times, our military's action was ethically repulsive, like supporting tyrannical governments in crushing civilian rebellions. Sure, 'we' act like police, but it's more like the kind of "police" people have been protesting over the past year than like the friendly authority figure that exists to impartially uphold the law.
Also, since I've seen several people mix the two up recently:
populace - (noun) a large group/collection of people, like "the public"
populous - (adjective) densely populated
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:10AM
The problem with that is any time anything bad happens in the world and the US is not involved, they get the blame for not stopping it.
The US gets the blame for not stopping it because they keep poking their noses and other stuff into other countries AND trying to pretend they're the good guys.
If the US stops doing that (haha), I'm sure a lot of us will stop blaming the US for not stopping random shit from happening around the world. Half of the blaming is to remind them and others of the USA's hypocrisy.
The Russians and other countries have every right to be suspicious of the USA given the USA's track record.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions [wikipedia.org]
And just look at this story - they're trying to spin this as the Russkies being the bad guys here.
How far away is the US warship from the USA?
How far away are the Russian planes from Russia? So who is the real aggressor here?
Russia and China poke their noses into other countries too, but they don't do it as much AND they don't pretend they're the good guys and doing it for the good of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @10:05AM
False;
Europe is mostly reluctant in doing 'warlike' things as they had enough of that on their own in the last decades and don't want to inflict it on anyone else. However, France recently proved that they do go in not just with some cruise missiles fired safely from afar, injuring civilians in the process, but with boots on the ground the same day their President declares 'we're going in'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval [wikipedia.org]
The US has a bad reputation as they only invade places where there is oil or interesting stuff; they only do it when they can get rich from it, and the way they do it often costs many civilian lives. No US troops in Somalia, North Korea, none to fight Boko Haram in Nigeria, ....