Russia showing US it's a Bear at the Door. Does Obama realize how dangerous this bear is?

Sarah Palin:

On the campaign trail four years
ago I talked about Alaska's strategic location on the globe, the potential for
future conflicts over arctic transportation lanes and resources, and the crucial
need to keep our eye on Putin's activities. Later I spoke out against Obama's
egregious decision to cut back Alaska's missile defense systems. Please take a
look at this article about Russia's arctic war game exercises earlier this
month. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who was paying attention four
years ago. Maybe now we should ask the President if this is what "more
flexibility" means.

The Russian war games began the same day President Obama and Russian
President Vladimir Putin held a frosty summit meeting in Mexico June 18.

U.S. officials said the arctic exercises over the Russian Far East
and Pacific appeared to be a further sign of Russia’s hardening posture
toward the United States.

The Obama administration made no protest of the bomber intrusions,
according to the officials, in line with its conciliatory “reset” policy
of seeking warmer ties with Moscow.

About 30 strategic nuclear bombers and support aircraft took part in
the war games that continued through June 25. The aircraft included
Tu-95MS Bear H and Tu-160 Blackjack nuclear-capable bombers, along with
Il-76 refueling tankers, A-50 airborne warning and control aircraft, and
Su-27 and MiG-31 jet fighters. Some 200 troops also took part in the
Russian Strategic Aviation forces exercise.

A spokesman for the joint U.S. Northern Command and North American
Aerospace Defense command in Colorado Springs, which monitors air
defense intrusions, had no immediate comment. A Pentagon spokesman
declined to comment.

U.S. and Canadian F-15 and F-16 jets were involved in the intercepts
that took place near the Air Identification Zone surrounding Alaskan
airspace over the northern Pacific.

The exercises are part of increasingly aggressive Russian military
activities in the arctic region in both the eastern and western
hemispheres, which have created security worries among governments in
northern Europe and Canada.

One official said the failure to publicize the threatening bomber
maneuvers might have been related to Obama’s overheard promise in March
to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev of “more flexibility.”

According to the defense officials, the arctic bomber exercises are
part of Russian efforts to assert control over vast areas of the arctic
circle that are said to contain large mineral and oil deposits.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaska North
American Aerospace Defense commander, said the Russian exercises should
be a concern.

“The Russians continue to exercise our air defense identification
zone, which shows Mr. Putin loves to let President Obama know that they
still have global capability,” McInerney said in an interview. “So much
for reset.”

McInerney also said the Obama administration kept the encounter
between the bombers and U.S. fighters secret because “they obviously
don’t want the world to know that the exercise was done deliberately to
coincide with the Obama-Putin summit.”