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CNN reports that the US Navy launched four armed F/A-18 fighter jets to intercept two Russian Tu-142 Bear aircraft that were flying near the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan while it was participating in a bilateral training exercise with South Korea in the Pacific Ocean. "It is standard operating procedure for U.S. planes to escort aircraft flying in the vicinity of U.S. Navy ships," says Navy Cmdr. William J. Marks. "This type of interaction is not unprecedented. Overall I would characterize the interaction as safe." The Nimitz-class nuclear-powered USS Reagan is essentially a floating airport, complete with an air traffic control center that tracks and communicates with nearby aircraft. When the carrier engages in flight operations, it institutes a carrier control zone, which extends up to 2,500 feet and within a five-mile radius, according to the Navy's flight training instruction carrier procedures.
The lack of communication by the Russian aircraft conflicted with general aviation practice. Even commercial airports of any significant size generally expect two-way radio contact when aircraft fly as close as the Russians did, according to international aviation guidelines. Encounters such as these were common during the Cold War. They subsided with its end but picked up again under current Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Over the last few years and particularly this year and last year, with the start of the Ukraine crisis, Russia has picked up the number of sorties," says Nick de Larrinaga. adding that Putin wants to show Russia is "still a global military power and a force to be reckoned with."
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @05:04AM
ftfy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @07:54AM
The only real economic challenger is China, and they are having growing pains right now. Who knows if it's sustainable.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @12:23PM
Remarkable, but sad, that an ignorant and patently wrong statement like this gets modded all the way up because of its sophomoric bash-US tone. This is really turning into a pathetic echo chamber.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 02 2015, @04:08PM
Everyone in this thread is missing the bigger picture, which is that the command-and-control, 19th century elites are losing their grip. Those elites span countries and languages and have much more in common with each other than their "countrymen." People who still cast these conflicts in nation-state terms are about 2 centuries behind the times.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 02 2015, @07:00PM
I think both are true, though I acknowledge that my sources are biased in favor of the US. China is growing in power. Japan appears to be relatively stable. Austrailia and Britain seem to be declining, but I'm not sure about the rest of the EU. I'm also not sure about New Zealand. Indonesia seems to be growing, but it's starting from a low base. India? The signals seem mixed. Vietnam is growing. Not sure about Cuba. The news about Mexico is so biased I can't even guess. Canada seems stable, but slowly declining.
What, however, about the places the news doesn't cover? It's my suspicion that one of them is growing rapidly in power, while most of the others are declining...but this is only based on historic precedent. Brazil could be becoming the next superpower. So could Argentina or Peru, but the news coverage is so scanty and unreliable that I wouldn't expect to know ahead of time. What about some place in Siberia? Unlikely, given what I know, but most of the reliable information dates back to the early 1900's. I don't expect N.Korea to be worth noticing, but S.Korea could be quite important...or not. And what about the Union of South Africa?
Geopolitics are complicated, and forcasts are even less reliable than economic forecasts...and for much the same reason: Too much intentional distortion of the data.
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