US jets intercepted Russian bombers off the California and Alaska coasts on July 4

[mfcorey1]

On July 4th, two pairs of Russian Tupolev Tu-95 bombers approached the US West coast, causing the Air Force to scramble to intercept the planes before they breached US airspace.

Fox News reports that the first incident occurred at 10:30 am ET off the coast of Alaska, when NORAD identified the Russian planes and two F-22s hurried to intercept them. Another incident occurred at 11 am ET off the coast of central California, and was responded to by two F-15s.

The Russian bombers they intercepted are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but sources do not indicate whether or not they were armed.

The Air Force intercepted the bombers before they entered America's sovereign air space, which extends 12 miles out from the coast, but the presence of the bombers is an ominous sign during the heightened tensions between Russia and the US.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-jets-intercepted-russian-bombers-off-the-california-and-alaska-coasts-on-july-4/ar-AAcDwdA

[HereSince1628]

1. IOW: Russians add sense of realism to wildly jingoistic national celebration

I am quite sure the MIC appreciates the Russian presence. Without them we'd have to invent an enemy like ... a threat of Chinese participation in international finance.

[stevenleser]

2. LOL: Russians do something bad is an excuse for you to criticize the U.S.!

Priceless.

[HereSince1628]

3. What was bad? The US does surveillance too. Most recently the stories are

about the US flying surveillance against China and having ships near N Korea.

Nations, including us, push aircraft and naval vessels up against exclusion zones regularly.

This isn't new or particularly scary; it's pretty routine.

[Duckhunter935]

4. Not with Russia

We both stopped that decades ago. Russia restarted that last year around the USA and NATO members.

[MBS]

6. " " " " " n/t

[HereSince1628]

8. IIRC Russia has been doing this off and on since Putin ascended...

so nothing new there. It's been more regular since the Ukraine land grab as one might expect.

The US relies heavily on remote sensing, and that helps keep costs down, but we still engage in these activities.

What the Russians did is pretty typical. Reconnaissance tactics have always included options for tripping a response to force exposure of deployment, capability and signals capacity.

[Snobblevitch]

12. Surveillance?

You think this was about surveillance?

[HereSince1628]

13. In part, but the story about why the story was told is another significance

and perhaps the one that as a people we should be paying attention to...

since it was constructed for our consumption and rather likely for the benefit of some someones with a financial interest in promoting the MIC.

[Snobblevitch]

15. The Russian Bears were there to be provacative.

They were not doing surveillance.

[NuclearDem]

17. Tu-95s are not surveillance aircraft.

They're the Russian equivalent of the the B-52, strategic bombers.

[lpbk2713]

20. And like the B-52's ...

Some are being flown by the grandchildren of pilots who flew the same aircraft many years previous.

Yes, the airframe is that old.

[MBS]

5. uggh.

Unnecessarily dangerous provocation.

[Scuba]

7. Be afraid, very, very afraid.

[-none]

11. That's what I was thinking.

More of the same old thing. Why do we go out of our way to make enemies so we can fight them? "We" being our government.

[mmonk]

9. Saber rattling.

[peace13]

10. Russia can see...

...that the U.S. is a careening toward becoming a third world country with nuclear weapons. We are held hostage by Senators, Congress people and a media who are largely ignorant and focused solely on lining their own pockets. This is done at the expense of not only Americans but the entire planet. You can bet that we have done the same to protect ourselves from Russia recently and in times past. They practice to send a message to the clowns in DC. They practice because like it or not we appear to be run by an unstable bunch of lunatics!

When we attacked Iraq the gloves came off. We have no right to complain about what other countries do to us or others. It is so sad to see how far things have gone. When we were on the peace line and calling senators about Iraq it would have been nice to have a few more Americans doing the same. There were a handful who tried to stop the madness to no avail. I hope that things can be put right and do not wish ill on this nation but if we get scared when Russia flies near, so be it. If we can't bring sense and reason to DC there will be more of this type of display!

[hack89]

14. Russia is well ahead of us in that particular race. nt

[GeorgeGist]

16. FOX News reports. eom

[Takket]

18. testing how far they can get before intercept. data collection.

[Sam_Fields]

19. This is propaganda generated by the Pentagon.

The US flies along the Russian borders all the time also. This is no big deal and means nothing except to scare the gullible to think that Russia is somehow a threat.