dea@druxu.UUCP (09/12/83)
As a former member of an early warning radar sight, and a member of the battlestaff, I think I can fairly accurately shed some light on the subject of Russian aircraft "straying" into our airspace. 1. The Russians frequently violate our airspace - intentionally. During my one year tour at Cape Lisburne AFS, Alaska, we were involved in no lesss than 12 intercept missions involving Russian aircraft. Those were just "our" intercepts. Now take all of the other sites across the top of North America, Canada, Iceland, and Greenland and add their intercepts to the tally, and suddenly the numbers aren't so small. 2. The Russian policy towards airborne intercepts appears to be armed, hostile aggression. Our policy is much more tolerant because we feel that there is always that chance that the aircrew is trying to defect. Without going into the classified details, our posture during one of these intercepts leaves absolutely no doubt in the Russian pilots' head as to what will happen if he, A) does not leave our airspace im- mediately, B) shows intentions to defect, and later acts aggressively as he approaches a U.S. installation. If you have never seen what goes on in a "war room" during one of these intercepts, you have no appreciation for the tension one of them can create. 3. Russian aircraft frequently will penetrate our airspace 50 miles or more in an effort to eavesdrop on our military installations, and then scoot back across the line just before our fighters are able to intercept them. When you watch these aircraft on radar from the time they take off in N.E. Russia , fly straight across and into our airspace you can hardly refer to those incidents as "unintentional". If you believe the Russians don't cross our borders, you're only kidding yourself. They do it frequently, much more so than us because they know that we tend to be more humanistic and are not as likely to shoot one of their aircraft down. Dave Allen druxu!dea