US, Canada Track 4 Russian Military Aircraft Near Alaska

U.S. and Canadian fighter jets intercepted two Russian long-range bombers off the coast of Alaska on Aug. 8, 2019. NORAD

U.S. and Canadian forces tracked four Russian military aircraft through Alaska’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Aug. 13 and 14.

Alaska’s ADIZ is not part of U.S. airspace proper, but the zone immediately surrounding it in which aircraft are identified and tracked in the interest of national security.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a joint U.S.-Canada military organization that oversees North American airspace and its defense, said the incident was routine and did not present a military threat to the denizens of North America.

“This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” a press statement said.

Russian military aircraft have been probing North American airspace since the late 2000s. Such missions frequently draw out U.S. and Canadian air assets, which escort the Russian planes away from allied airspace.

NORAD did not specify whether it had sent aircraft to intercept the Russian planes, but in a nearly identical scenario in February, the organization sent in two F-16s and two F-35s to monitor and escort Russian military aircraft in the ADIZ. Another intercept occurred in May.

“Since Russia resumed out-of-area Long Range Aviation activity in 2007, NORAD has seen a yearly average of approximately six to seven intercepts of Russian military aircraft in the ADIZ,” a NORAD statement said in February.

“These numbers have varied each year from as high as 15 to as low as zero.”

Tensions High Amid Increased US Vigilance

The United States’ responses to possible threats in and near its airspace have come under heightened scrutiny since U.S. forces shot down four objects flying above U.S. and Canadian airspace in February and March.

Those objects included a Chinese spy balloon and three unidentified objects, which may have been civilian hobby balloons. The incidents marked a historic moment for NORAD, which in its 65-year history had never before shot down an aerial object over North America.

Those incidents were not handled without problem, however. NORAD forces apparently failed to detect one of the objects until it had already entered U.S. airspace. It failed again to track and engage another object that lingered near sensitive U.S. nuclear silos in Montana before it was rediscovered and shot down over Lake Huron.

NORAD’s statement to the Russian mission near Alaska this week reaffirmed that the organization maintains a robust defense for tracking and engaging with potentially hostile aircraft.

“NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars, and fighter aircraft to track aircraft and inform appropriate actions,” the statement said.

“NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.”

Russia, China Increasing Presence in North American Waters

Monday’s incident comes amid a renewed campaign by Russian leadership to rally its few de facto allies against the United States and the international order that it leads.

Warships from a joint China–Russia naval operation cruised near the coast of Alaska last week in what has been described as the largest combined Russian–Chinese battle group to ever approach U.S. shores.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping first declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, weeks before Russia launched its attempted conquest of Ukraine. That partnership has deepened significantly since then, and experts now believe that political leadership in Moscow and Beijing believe themselves to be in a joint struggle against U.S. hegemony on a global scale.

To that end, the two leaders met earlier in the year in Moscow, where they pledged to reshape the international order to their interests. Putin said at the time that China and Russia would create a more just “multipolar world order” to replace the “rules” of the current international order.

Russia and Iran also continue to ink new defense agreements. Iran is providing Russia with hundreds of suicide drones for use in Ukraine, while Russia, in turn, is selling the Islamist regime fifth-generation fighter jets and other advanced capabilities.

Sino–Iranian agreements have also begun to proliferate, with Beijing allegedly going so far as to conspire to deliver parts for weapons of mass destruction to Tehran.

Now, China, Iran, and Russia are working together across the diplomatic, economic, and military domains, as well as in each of their respective regions. That effort is designed to break up U.S. influence abroad, according to Jonathan Lord, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

“We see it on a strategic level,“ Mr. Lord said during a talk last month. ”We see it on a tactical level. But there’s no question that the cooperation we’re seeing between Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing in a military-security capacity makes all three stronger.”