US officials have been harping on about an incident in the Baltic Sea for a solid week, claiming Russia was “unprofessional” when its warplanes came within 30 feet of a US warship, the USS Donald Cook.
Russian officials today insisted they aren’t happy with the incident either, noting that the US parked the destroyer at the fringe of Russia’s territorial water around the exclave of Kaliningrad, in what they believe was an attempt at “intimidation.”
Indeed, the whole incident boils down to the US parking the ship in a clearly provocative place and acting “shocked” when Russia sent planes to see why the US parked the ship there. That it came just a week before the NATO meeting with Russia, the first time in 2 years, suggests it was deliberately timed to give the US something to complain about at the NATO meet.
US officials insist the Donald Cook was on “routine patrols” at the time, but there is no indication that the ship was moving, but rather just sitting in international waters. Secretary of State John Kerry went so far as to say the US would have every right to shoot down the visibly unarmed Russian planes for daring to get close.
Perhaps Russia should “park” the cruiser Moskva twelve+ nautical miles off Virginia Beach and then sit back, crack a few beers and bottles of vodka, and wait for Washington to start whining about how illegal this is..
Didnt you know Ghost ship that America is SPECIAL it claims a 24 mile international exclusion zone from US Shores!
from a geographical point of view the safes country on the planet is the one always crying about how scared it is.
I think you’re confusing the contiguous zone with territorial waters:
“A maritime zone adjacent to the territorial sea that may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles (nms) from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. Within the contiguous zone the coastal state may exercise the control necessary to prevent and punish infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea. In all other respects the contiguous zone is an area subject to high seas freedom of navigation, overflight, and related freedoms, such as the conduct of military exercises.”
Each side correctly sees the other as engaged in deliberate provocation.
What does the US gain from this? Only advancing the neocon agenda of renewed Cold War. That is a US defeat, not victory for our true interests.
Peace is an advantage to the US in the long run. Productive business prospers in peace. Only the waste of military spending prospers from war.
No, Empire USA sees clearly that the Russian response is deliberate self-defense.
No, peace makes expansion impossible for our greed driven voting majority.
30 years ago when the soviet union existed, when the us would do something provocative like park a ship on the edge of territorial waters, the soviet union had the resources and ability to respond in kind,
for instance parking a destroyer uncomfortably close to Florida.
dispatching a few fighters to intercept is simply the response of any sovereign state with a modern military. not a globe spanning empire.