Jason

"At no time did Russian airplanes enter Canadian airspace but within 24 hours of the president's visit here to Canada last week we did scramble two CF-18 fighter planes from Norad (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and Canada command," MacKay said.

The jets took off from Cold Lake, Alta., to intercept the aircraft, which has been reported as either a Tupolev Tu-95 bomber or its newer sister, the Tu-160.

"They met a Russian aircraft that was approaching Canadian airspace and, as they have done on previous occasions, they sent very clear signals that are understood that that aircraft was to turn around, turn tail, and head back to its own airspace -- which it did," MacKay said.

CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife said the plane was intercepted about 190 km northeast of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.

"Obviously what they were doing was testing Canadian security knowing full well that all of our security attention would be focused in Ottawa around the president's visit," Fife said.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories

sobeit

Russia said they were going to start testing airspace and returning to other cold war tactics.

Drew1369

The pawn moves forward...

40sondacurb

Trying to do the reverse Regan while our economy's in the toilet maybe?

Chode

Actually, the Russian economy is pretty deep in the toilet too. My, isn't there a lot of that going around these days! Their economy is very heavily dependent on oil and natural gas, so they are making serious cutbacks in military expenditures right now. Corruption in their system is so pervasive that they just don't have much economic diversity. Russia may be able to overawe Georgia and Ukraine, and bribe Kazakhstan to terminate an American airbase lease, but otherwise I think their military is worse than it was at the collapse of the Soviet Union. They still can't train and equip troops, and their best military hardware is just catching up with that of the West 25 years ago.

Mcninjaguy

What did the cold war do? nothing!

fear mongering... ack it sickens me

Chode

What the Cold War did was to contain Soviet expansionism. If the West had ignored Soviet ambitions, I think all of Europe would just be another group of Soviet client states. The Soviets weren't ever subtle about their goals; they were Evangelicals on a mission of faith reinforced by a tradition of paranoia. Maybe you haven't seen any films of the Soviets brutal suppression of the revolts in Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the West was eager to treat Russia as a major trading partner, and made substantial investments in the Russian economy. Unfortunately, Russia has increasingly been dominated by organized crime and the worst of the thugs (such as Putin) who did the dirty work for the old Soviet state. Putin's puppet Medvedev is just reviving the old strategy of threat and intimidation in an attempt to regain what the leadership of Russia sees as lost respect. Really sad when Russia has immense natural resources and people with drive, courage, and determination who could exert a truly positive influence in the world.

Mcninjaguy

I know the cold war was all caused from behind Iron Curtain. Yea Russai is huge and I'm sure they immense oil fields and gold deposits, all great things to rebuild their economy.

My recently deceased grand father was a I think Director of Electronic Warfare for the Canadian Intelligence. My grandmother was abducted by the Russian's in the early 80's or late 70's when she tried to visit her family in Estonia.

I would like Russia more if they had a little bit of more world friendly flare for economics, Military and Civic matters, but I'm sad that isn't so :(

I was referring to Fear mongering from the russians not The U.S. or Canada, we just wanted to have a more democratic world even if the results are less than desirable.

"If something is too perfect, there's something wrong with it."
-Don't remember the source

well the world isn't perfect what Russia tries to portray is awfully suspicious with the actions they take. Trying to claim the Arctic Ocean and all that jazz

Chode

oops!

Mcninjaguy

nah I like the last post you made it was educational I'm not too up to date on current events