Ship & Aircraft Provocations

Sheltie

Fratty and out of touch.
Canada and Mexico are our favorite trade partners and guess what, China, they aren't threatening us militarily.
 

AD1184

Celestial
Canada and Mexico are our favorite trade partners and guess what, China, they aren't threatening us militarily.
They also do not have the power with which to threaten, so what of it? China does have the power, and power behaves somewhat like a gas, in that it expands to fill whatever will contain it.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
power behaves somewhat like a gas, in that it expands to fill whatever will contain it.

Great statement and quite true...

...
 

Toroid

Founding Member
VIDEO: Russian jet intercepts US Navy aircraft in 'unsafe' encounter, uses afterburners over Black Sea
A close encounter took place between a U.S. Navy aircraft and a Russian aircraft over the Black Sea on Monday morning, when the Russian jet intercepted the U.S. Navy aircraft in international airspace for about 25 minutes and also used its afterburners.

Amid flying through international airspace, the U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries aircraft encountered a Russian SU-27, which performed a dangerously close maneuver in intercepting the U.S. aircraft and then using its afterburners, according to a statement by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4rPChBB_zk
 

AD1184

Celestial
What interest does the US have in the Black Sea? If the Russian Navy was conducting signals reconnaissance flights in the Gulf of Mexico, you can bet that American planes would be intercepting them 'in an unsafe manner'. I think that the US military announces these supposedly heinous interceptions and certain outlets report on them with the expectation that those reading are not going to bother to look up where they happen on a map.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
We have an insurance blanket with China, We owe them trillions of dollars. They are going to try everything to benefit financially from us before they try to attack us. An attack on the U.S from China would certainly do them no favors.

I don't think China wants a conflict with America. Why would they want to spend vast amounts of finances to attack us when we already owe them so much? It's not logical.

I agree these are a sign of hostility and disrespect though. Maybe it's just China being pissy about all the money we owe them.
 
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Toroid

Founding Member

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
We have an insurance blanket with China, We owe them trillions of dollars. They are going to try everything to benefit financially from us before they try to attack us. An attack on the U.S from China would certainly do them no favors.

I don't think China wants a conflict with America. Why would they want to spend vast amounts of finances to attack us when we already owe them so much? It's not logical.

I agree these are a sign of hostility and disrespect though. Maybe it's just China being pissy about all the money we owe them.

Strategically I highly doubt we have to worry about a Sino-American war (another one anyway ....). But on a tactical level I could see our ships and planes engaged in a firefight, collision, incident of some sort. A lot of that happened with reconnaissance ships and planes during the Cold War and a fair number of lives were lost. It went largely unreported to avoid wider conflict. Almost impossible to do these days.

Lately it seems our ships have been blundering into things without provocation at all. Disturbing.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
Strategically I highly doubt we have to worry about a Sino-American war (another one anyway ....). But on a tactical level I could see our ships and planes engaged in a firefight, collision, incident of some sort. A lot of that happened with reconnaissance ships and planes during the Cold War and a fair number of lives were lost. It went largely unreported to avoid wider conflict. Almost impossible to do these days.

Lately it seems our ships have been blundering into things without provocation at all. Disturbing.

I've had a lot of time to think about this, And you're right, Even though as a nation we owe China trillions of dollars, We are still their biggest market. I'm almost certain China would do anything within its power to keep its western market open now that I give it thought. we may owe them trillions of dollars, But for all the money China has, they would go bankrupt almost overnight without Europe and American income flowing in.
 

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
We as a nation do not...Most US debt is owed to the Federal Reserve, 'we' owe china about 1.6 trillion, less than 20 percent of the total debt...

National debt of the United States - Wikipedia

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I had no idea, I knew our national debt was like in the trillions, I assumed it was all to China. Still, I don't know how everyone else parents and grandparents raised them. But my grandparents passed down this viewpoint, A person in debt cannot be wealthy because any money he or she owns belongs to someone else.

I mean don't get me wrong, I am in debt, Things like student loans and medical surgery bills, Unavoidable things. But as a whole, I try my best to avoid debt at all costs.

I know everyone will have a different view, But, I would rather do without something than owe someone else for that thing. I've always been that way, Because Debt, Largely, isn't just money, I will give you an example and I think it will apply to the political scene as well. let's say, I owed someone like five grand. This person shows up to my home demanding something of me, Logically, it wouldn't be prudent to say no or deny this person because I owe them so much, Debt can be a foggy unclear thing.

As with China, China probably expects political favors from us because we owe them over a trillion dollars. So, basically, When someone is in debt, They aren't truly Free. I avoid debt whenever I can, So this is what blows me away about our National Debt, We aren't truly our own free nation, because all these other nations we owe money too expect privilege from us.
 

AD1184

Celestial
The US government owes most of the debt to itself, or to the people of America. You paid Social Security which was supposed to be for particular services that the government was to provide to those who paid in to it, but the government took this money and used it for general spending, giving you all an IOU. Therefore Social Security is in actuality income tax by another name.

There is a similar sort of thing in this country with what we call National Insurance. Both schemes seemed like a good idea, but our governments could not resist these vast sums of money just sitting around waiting to be claimed at a later date, and so they helped themselves to them.
 

Creepy Green Light

Don't mistake lack of talent for genius
When we were patrolling the Red Sea enforcing the embargo against Iraq - we would intercept any north bound cargo ships to make sure they weren't sneaking supplies into Iraq. So we would fly a race track pattern around them as I rigged their ship (taking photos in certain positions for our intelligence guy) & got the name off the back and we would look up where the ship is from. It wasn't uncommon to see a name on the back of the ship painted over with a false name. So as we are flying over them we'd ask what their port of origin is, their destination, & their cargo." Mostly all ships would comply and for those who didn't - we had a destroyer code named Red Crown that would intercept the ship to get the information. But when we'd fly over Chinese ships you would constantly hear "F-you yankee. F George Bush, etc." They didn't like to play nice.

And here's a video showing how close Russian (and Chinese) fighters get to our aircraft. After seeing this video it's easier to understand how a Chinese MiG drifted into the prop arc of the #1 engine with the pilot getting killed.

 

Toroid

Founding Member
U.S. warns merchant ships of possible Iranian attacks in Middle East - Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. commercial ships including oil tankers sailing through key Middle East waterways could be targeted by Iran in one of the threats to U.S. interests posed by Tehran, the U.S. Maritime Administration said in an advisory.

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FILE PHOTO: A MH-60S helicopter hovers in the air with an oil tanker in the background as the USS John C. Stennis makes its way to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
The U.S. military said this week that a number of B-52 bombers would be part of additional forces being sent to the Middle East to counter what the Trump administration calls “clear indications” of threats from Iran to U.S. forces there. The Islamic Republic has dismissed the U.S. contention of a threat as “fake intelligence”.

In the advisory posted on Thursday, the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) said that since early May there had been an increased possibility of Iran or its regional proxies taking action against U.S. and partner interests.

These included, MARAD said, oil production infrastructure, after Tehran threatened to close the vital Strait of Hormuz chokepoint through which about one third of the world’s seaborne crude exports flow.

“Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf,” MARAD said.


“Reporting indicates heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against U.S. forces and interests.”

Millions of barrels of oil pass daily through the various bottlenecks from Middle East oil producers to markets across the globe.

Tensions have risen between Tehran and Washington since the Trump administration withdrew a year ago from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran and began ratcheting up sanctions to throttle Tehran’s economy.

Vice Admiral Jim Malloy, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, told Reuters on Thursday that its forces were on a heightened state of readiness, although the U.S. military was not seeking or preparing for war with Iran.

MARAD added that U.S.-flagged ships were encouraged to contact the Fifth Fleet - which is tasked with protecting commercial shipping in the area - at least two days before sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.


Washington further tightened sanctions on Iran this month - eliminating waivers that had allowed some countries to buy its oil - with a goal of reducing Tehran’s crude exports to zero.

Iran has responded by scaling back some curbs on its nuclear program concerning material stockpiles though it remains compliant with commitments to restrict its uranium enrichment activity.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
B-52s and Tu-142s still out there making political statements well into their 5th and 6th decades of service.

The Italians can be tough customers and nobody to trifle with. I didn't know they were in Iceland but it gives me the warm fuzzy to now know they are. Wonder if they've seen any tic tacs?

If the Iranians are feeling froggy I say 'jump'
 
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