Organic Prepper - Marie Howthorne

On August 11, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced that they had tracked three Russian surveillance aircraft entering and operating within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the past three days. The Russians stayed within international air space, and NORAD announced in their press release that they did not consider the Russians' actions threatening or provocative, though they did deploy F-22s to identify conduct surveillance of the Russian aircraft.

Russian surveillance aircraft have entered the Alaskan ADIZ before. NORAD identified Russian aircraft in our airspace in both January and March 2021 . Russian military aircraft were tracked14 times in 2020. Since 2020, Russian activity near Alaska has been higher than at any point since the Cold War.

So, should we all start panicking because the Russians are coming?

No, but the situation merits our attention. Even though the Cold War ended 30 years ago, many Americans have never really trusted Russia. It would be foolish in the extreme to assume that Russians are any different. We monitor areas worldwide. Russia is another large country with an advanced military. It's not unreasonable to assume that they like to know what's going on around the world, as well.

Let’s think about the timing a little bit. Many people have noted that while Putin annexed Crimea during the Obama administration, and attacked Ukraine during the Biden administration, he was very quiet during the Trump years. In fact, during the Russiagate controversy, evidence emerged that Putin wanted Hillary to win because he believed she was more predictable. It seems reasonable that the Russians would be in “watch and wait” mode during the Trump years.

And I see a few reasons that surveillance would have heightened toward the end of Trump’s administration. One might be simply seeing if much had changed during the Trump administration, as far as increasing our own military presence near Russia.

Another, maybe more likely, could have been wanting to observe the effects of the pandemic on our defense structures. Covid hit Russia hard, but the U.S.’s dysfunction has been on display worldwide for more than two years now. Whether it was the scandal about Cuomo putting Covid patients in nursing homes, lawmakers such as Gavin Newsom and Lori Lightfoot disregarding their own orders, or the total lack of consistency between states, the U.S. has not presented itself as a strong, united country. We’ve looked like a scrambled, disorganized mess. At times, especially after the George Floyd protests, it’s felt like we’re about to rip each other apart. In 2020, if I were the Russians, I would have been watching us, too.

And let’s think about what has been going on worldwide just in the past six months.