I think I smell a Soviet Union in the oven...
 

Checking my email and had to back up to read this article that caught my eye...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/...ssian_warships

...Now I know I thought the Bush administration was dumb when my unit spent the better part of 2 years in the desert but this takes the cake! "Pentagon with a ho-hum attitude"??? Talks with Venezuaela??? Russian Tu-160s flying around the Carribbean and warships using the Canal?!?! :o What's next - A Kirov Class docking at Norfolk?

Sticking your US-nose deep into Russia's Kaukasian backyard, what do you complain about Russia's nose in your own backyard then? But be at rest, there is no real danger. Your defense budget is around 18 times as high than theirs.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5...eichttslt7.jpg
(from: Berlin Tagespiegel)

Naw, let em try...They would taste the sting of death by just one Virginia class SSN.:yep:

Whats that smell..... Oah crap I burned the Soviet Union. Honey, get the fire extenguisher, I hope you like your Soviet Union extra crispy. (sorry I had to do it.):lol:

Sorry but I'm a child of the Cold War US Military... Dad was an Eagle driver for 27 years and I remember a time when a Bear flew near England/Iceland and a pair of birds took off to show him his way home! :D Let alone hanging out in the Carribbean...

Really can't blame the Russians, it's technically international waters anyway. Besides, if the US reacted negatively it would be accused of a whole slew of things, top of which Russia can claim "but we weren't doing anything wrong".

So shrugging and saying "okay, so what?" is probably the right response. Of course, I notice Ms. Rice isn't saying anything about the 688/21/774-class that might or might not be following that pretty, pretty DDG. :hmm:

The Russians can bob around where they like. It gives us an opportunity to have exercises with our hunter/killer and fast attack subs. :know: Just the Russian thumbing a nose at us. Nothing more. Perhaps it is payback for the wiretapping we were doing off their shores many years ago. No wait, were still doing that. :smug:

Not to mention learning a lot about how they operate and what their capabilities are. Like a football team that practices on an opponents home field, their every move is going to be observed, analyzed, quantified and categorized.

"Know thy enemy...."

Well, maybe not in this case. As the Russians would also know this, the exercises in the Carib are probably dumbed-down extensively so US SSNs wouldn't learn quite so much.

Which means not that much gets learned by the units in the exercise, but hey. That's the price you pay for making a political statement.

They are probably just observing. We have certainly made sound profiles on their ships long ago.

Yeah we do the same thing but there are still things to be learned.

Well they way that the oil prices are going and the Russian stock exchange, they may be do some more drills tied up to the docks in the future!

:yep:

Now is the time to test the electronics and see how good they are;) Anyway, the Pentagon does not care. According to the news, they have a ho-hum attitude with the whole thing. Russia is just flexing and having some fun.

Judging by the maintenance on their vessels, this might be a good idea.