Russians test US air defences 16 times in 10 days

The testing of a nations air defences is not in itself an unusual occurrence. These things happen all the time. Though the information from NORAD is newsworthy because it shows a sharp spike in such events since the threat of sanctions and the shooting down of  MH17 in Ukraine last month.  Due to the complexity of world politics, the terrorist act of shooting down a Malaysian passenger jet has ramifications way beyond the scope of Ukraine.


 Below is a snippet from the Source article:


“Over the past week, NORAD has visually identified Russian aircraft operating in and around the US air defense identification zones,” said Maj. Beth Smith, spokeswoman for US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Smith sought to downplay the incursions that she called “a spike in activity,” telling the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz that the flights were assessed as routine training missions and exercises.

But an unnamed defense official familiar with the incursion reports disagreed with Smith’s assessment. “These are not just training missions,” the official told Gertz, saying that Russian strategic nuclear forces appear to be “trying to test our air defense reactions, or our command and control systems.”