Russian Flyovers of US Warships

I noticed this week watching on several of the major networks that one guy was the leading expert on the subject of the Russian Flyovers of US Navy warships.
It wasn't Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or even John McCain...

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, said the Navy responded "appropriately by scrambling fighters to intercept" Russian bombers. (Allison Shelley/The Washington Times)

U.S. assessing Russian flyovers

By Sara A. Carter
Washington Times
February 13, 2008

U.S. military officials are assessing whether Moscow is returning to its Cold War tactics when it flexed its muscle this weekend by sending Russian bombers to fly at low altitudes over U.S. ships.

Gen. James Cartwright, who testified before the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, said the U.S. military is trying to gauge how it will respond to the incident and what the Russians intended to accomplish.

"Now what we're concerned about is, what are the indications of this return to a Cold War mind-set," Gen. Cartwright said. "What are the implications of that activity, and how do we best address that? It is free and international airspace, and we're just trying to now go back and look what message was intended by this overflight."

U.S. forces detected two Russian Tu-95 Bear aircraft on Saturday morning, flying south of Japan in the vicinity of and over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, which was on a scheduled deployment to fill in for the USS Kitty Hawk as it undergoes routine maintenance in Yokosuka, Japan. American fighter jets were scrambled to intercept and escort away the Russian bombers.

It is standard operating procedure for U.S. planes to escort aircraft flying in the vicinity of Navy ships, one Pentagon official said.

The last time a Russian bomber flew over a U.S. aircraft carrier was in July 2004, when a bomber flew over the Kitty Hawk in the East Sea/Sea of Japan, a Pentagon official said.

Since July, however, there have been at least eight instances where Russian aircraft have been intercepted near U.S. airspace. U.S. aircraft deployed from Elmendorf Air Force Base off the coast of Alaska handled the eight documented interceptions, according to a U.S. official familiar with the situation.

The latest incident was on Sept. 5, when six U.S. F-15 fighters from the base intercepted six Russian bombers on the northwest coast of Alaska.
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