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What is simple is so simple it needs to be stated in super simple terms because it is almost always ignored. USA are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. USA are the good guys and CCP Dictator-Tyrants in Beijing are the bad guys. Same relative to Iran and NK among a few others.
Pentagon in 2015 ended more than 15 years of strategic ambiguity when it identified Russia as strategic enemy number one, CCP Boyz in Beijing as number two, Iran as number three to include also a few gone astray others such as Venezuela which is hosting Russia and China.
A Russian TU-95 bomber flies through airspace northwest of Okinoshima island, Fukuoka prefecture in the southern island of Kyushu, Japan, August 22, 2013. Russia has flown similar bombers near the Alaskan coast recently.
Japan is a lot closer to Russia than the USA is, so Russia buzzes Japan and roams its near seas and territorial waters to get the attention of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Beijing is flying bomber circles around Taiwan since the people elected a president and parliament controlled by the independence party in 2015. Putin sends his bombers close to Alaska which is more convenient to him than to send 'em across the Atlantic which Putin would do if he could. Nato nations are right there at the Russia border which is btw why Nato exists as a defensive alliance since 1949 and it is why decidedly there is a European Union rather than a Federation of Russian European Republics.
WHY IS RUSSIA FLYING NUCLEAR-CAPABLE BOMBERS NEAR ALASKA?
Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at U.K.-based specialist military publication IHS Jane’s, says that such flights have both military and political benefits for Russia. Long-range bomber pilots see “training value” in the activity he says. “Part of that training benefit will include real-world experience of encountering and dealing with NATO fighter aircraft,” he says. However, as the largest country in the world, “Russia has plenty of airspace within its own borders for that,” if training was the sole consideration.
The pattern of flight frequency also fits Russia’s increased international ambitions too, Jennings notes. “After having effectively ended after the Cold War, Russian long-range aviation patrols, including bombers, tankers, airborne early warning aircraft, and long-range fighters, were resumed by Putin as far back as 2007, as a means of showing that Russia was back on the world stage,” Jennings says.
Since increase in tensions around the Ukraine conflict in 2014 Russia’s so-called “patrol flights” have increased on many fronts, especially near European allied airspace, particularly over the Baltic Sea.
“For a while they continued at a somewhat infrequent pace, until relations between the West and Russia broke down in 2014 over Putin’s invasion and annexation of Crimea, and his continued interference in eastern Ukraine,” Jennings says. “They are an easy and relatively safe way of Putin showing his resolve and flexing his military muscles to the West.” Jennings notes that Russia’s flights have remained in international airspace and there is little chance of them overflying NATO territory—a move that could legitimately be considered aggressive if not sanctioned.
“That said, [the Russian flights] do pose a danger to commercial aviation given that they often do not fly with transponders that would allow air traffic control to locate and identify them—a lot of their aircraft are so old that they are not even equipped with them. There have been reports of their pilots flying too close to NATO jets that are shadowing them and in a dangerous fashion,” says Jennings.
“It seems that so long as the current political situation between the West and Russia exists, these long-range Russian flights will continue,” he concludes.
Why Is Russia Flying Nuclear-Capable Bombers Near Alaska?
What's simple is simple, yes. Trouble is it's never that simple.
