A pair of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers have been dispatched by the Air Force to join three B-2s at the Royal Air Force Base Fairford, in the wake of Russia doubling its number of long range strategic bomber flights along the U.S. coastline and cruising over NATO ally airspace.Russian bombers crossed into the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) – a transition area around U.S. airspace where America does not have sovereignty but keeps closely monitors – at least 10 times in 2014, twice the average of five incursions a year since 2006, according to NORAD. They have also intruded the airspace buffer zones of NATO allies overseas including Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands.
U.S. defense and congressional officials attribute the increase in flights to rising tensions between Washington and Moscow since the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
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A good symbolic move by the Pentagon. But there needs to be an aggressive answer to repeated incursions by Russia into NATO airspace as sell as into US airspace in other areas. Weakness invites further violations.
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