Russian military provocations have increased so much
over the seven months since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine that Washington
and its allies are scrambling defense assets on a nearly daily basis in
response to air, sea and land incursions by Vladimir Putin's forces.
Not only is Moscow continuing to foment unrest in
Eastern Ukraine, U.S. officials and regional security experts say Russian
fighter jets are testing U.S. reaction times over Alaska and Japan's ability to
scramble planes over its northern islands — all while haunting Sweden's navy
and antagonizing Estonia's tiny national security force.
The White House months ago leveled economic
sanctions on several Russian businesses and political players, and recent weeks
have seen President Obama intensify his rhetoric toward Moscow. But many in
Washington's national security community say the response is simply not firm enough
and that, as a result, Mr. Putin actually feels emboldened to push the envelope
— Cold War-style.
"What's going on is a radical escalation of
aggressive Russian muscle flexing and posturing designed to demonstrate that
Russia is no longer a defeated power of the Cold War era," says Ariel
Cohen, who heads the Center for Energy, National Resources and Geopolitics at
the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington.
"The more we retreat, the more we are
encouraging Russia to behave in a more aggressive way," Mr. Cohen said.
"We need to be engaging more deeply with our Central Asian allies, but
instead we are in the process of abandoning turf to Russia, and it's wrong —
it's against our interests geopolitically to let Russia feel that they all of a
sudden have won all the turf without firing a shot."
The Obama administration resists such
characterizations, asserting that the White House is doing anything but
"retreating." He also
threatened to "impose a cost on Russia for aggression."
Mr. Obama's comments were followed this month by the
deployment of some 20 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks and roughly 700 U.S. troops
across Poland and three Baltic States — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — a move
military officials said was designed to send a message that serious Russian
aggression in the area could mean war with NATO.
But Mr. Putin has appeared undeterred. NATO
officials confirmed this week that the Russian air force flew an Ilyushin-20
spy plane into Estonian airspace Tuesday, triggering a swift reaction from NATO
fighter jets patrolling the area.
The incursion came just days after Sweden made
international headlines by scrambling a fleet of naval vessels to search for a
suspected submarine sighted about 30 miles off the coast of Stockholm in the
Baltic Sea.
Swedish authorities avoided pinning the incident
directly on Russia, and Moscow denied involvement. But regional analysts like
Mr. Cohen say they'd be surprised if the sub was not Russian.
The development, the analysts say, fits within a
growing list of similar Russian actions, including some directly challenging
U.S. territory.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command
scrambled jets to scare off two Russian strategic bombers that suddenly
appeared to conduct practice runs in airspace just 65 miles off Alaska in June.
A similar incident occurred in September, with U.S. and Canadian fighters
scrambling to deter six Russian aircraft, including two nuclear bombers, two
fighter jets and two refueling tankers, according to news reports.
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