(Bloomberg) --- Russian jets probing
NATO airspace and supersized war drills are spilling Kremlin military secrets
and scaring European nations into stiffening their armed forces.
The alliance said
by late October it intercepted more than 100 Russian planes this year, more
than three times the number in 2013. A report by the European Leadership
Network, a London
security research group, termed the incidents "a highly disturbing picture
of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles" and
"narrowly avoided mid-air collisions."
Yet there are
benefits for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"Clearly,
every time we come into contact with Russian forces and every time we see their
tactics and how they deploy, we do learn about them," U.S. Air Force
General Philip Breedlove, the 28-member NATO's top military commander, said in
Tallinn on Nov. 19. "They are just happening more often and occasionally,
the size of the activities is larger."
A worsening
standoff is pitting Europe and the U.S.
against Russia over Ukraine in the
biggest crisis since the Cold War's end 25 years ago. Even German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier -- a persistent proponent of dialog -- said on
Nov. 18 after shuttle diplomacy in Kiev and Moscow , that he sees
little reason for optimism.
"The rapid
mobilization of 20,000 to 40,000 Russian troops at the Ukrainian border scared
the hell out of NATO," Karl-Heinz Kamp, academic director at the German
government's Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin, said by phone.
‘To Subjugate'
Russian President
Vladimir Putin said the U.S.
wants "not to humiliate, but to subjugate" Russia ,
in remarks at a Nov. 18 meeting of his People's Front party supporters in Moscow .
"We had such
brilliant politicians like Nikita Khrushchev, who hammered the desk with his
shoe at the United Nations," Putin said in an Oct. 24 speech. "And
the whole world, primarily the United
States , and NATO thought: this Nikita is
best left alone, he might just go and fire a missile."
Monitoring drills
and Russian aircraft flying along NATO or Finnish and Swedish airspace is
yielding intelligence on command and control, communications and tactics, said
Lukasz Kulesa, research director of the ELN in London
and former deputy head of Poland 's
National Security Bureau that advises the Polish president. Non-NATO members Finland and Sweden upgraded their alliance ties
in September.
‘Complex Deployments'
"A Russian
mission that sent planes on the same day to the Baltic, the North Sea and the
Black Sea tells us what Russian capabilities have become," Kulesa said by
phone. "It gives us a much better understanding of Russian readiness and
their ability to perform more complex deployments."
After suffering
initial setbacks in the 2008 Georgia War, Russia has continued investing in
its armed forces. The Kremlin increased military spending by 50 percent since
2005 while NATO has cut spending by 20 percent, according to NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg.
NATO, at its Sept.
4-5 Wales summit, shored up its eastern defenses against Russia as the U.S.,
which makes up two-thirds of alliance military spending, urged European allies
to pay more. The alliance agreed to rotate more troops through eastern Europe
and to set up a 5,000-soldier rapid-reaction force.
The Baltic states
are bolstering their armed forces with Estonia
vowing more troops on its border with Russia
after a security officer was snatched and taken to Moscow .
NATO Target
Denmark is poised
to spend more than $4 billion in its biggest air defense upgrade on either
Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)'s F-35, Boeing Co. (BA)'s F-18 Super Hornet or
Typhoon fighters, built by the Eurofighter consortium of BAE Systems Plc (BA/),
Airbus Group NV (AIR) and Italy's Finmeccanica SpA. (FNC)
‘Wake-Up Call'
Charly
Salonius-Pasternak, a security expert at the Finnish Institute of International
Affairs in Helsinki, termed Russia's moves "quite a wake-UNp call" that
makes it impossible for Finnish or Swedish politicians "who want to be
taken seriously" to dismiss Russia's buildup as low-level rearming.
"Russia 's armed
forces can do things that they couldn't do 10 years ago," he said in an
interview. "Russia
has a much better ability to transport large units, long distances and have
them arrive combat ready."
That's triggered a
debate in both Finland and Sweden on
whether to join NATO.
Putin, whose
military has taken control of or hold territory that under international law
belongs to Moldova and Georgia as well as annexing Ukraine's Crimea in March,
noted in his Oct. 24 Valdai speech that when Prussian statesman Otto von
Bismarck first appeared in the European arena in the 19th century "they
found him dangerous because he spoke his mind."
"I also always
try to say what I think," Putin said.
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