US simulating attacks to see how China, Russia react, analyst says

Washington’s concerns over “a resurgent Russia and a very, very aggressive China,” as put recently by a top air force general, indicate that the US is losing more ground in areas where Beijing and Moscow exert an influence, an analyst says.

US Air Force General Herbert Carlisle recently voiced concerns that Beijing and Moscow were pushing the US out of Eastern Europe and South China Sea, a pattern underpinned by a recent surge in intercepts of US warplanes by Chinese and Russian fighter jets.

“Their intent is to get us not to be there, so that the influence in those international spaces is controlled only by them,” Carlisle said in a USA Today interview released Sunday. “My belief is that we cannot allow that to happen.”

According to Eric Draitser, geopolitical analyst at StopImperialism.com, the remarks could indicate that the US is “now facing the potential of actual denial of its dominance.”

“Typically, the US is comfortable and traditionally able to access any area of the world, any theater of conflict… and to maintain dominance over it… But increasingly, that is not the case,” he said, referring to the recent intercepts.

“The reality is that the United States wants to maintain the status quo that is increasingly flipping away,” he noted, adding simulated “provocative” attacks by the US are meant to “simultaneously understand how these countries will respond militarily… and drum up support at home for increased funding to the military.”

There is no reason for the US to spend this much on military, particularly because the US has “no business” in the regions under the two powers’ influence “just as Russia having no business sending its destroyers into the Gulf of Mexico, to US territorial waters,” Draitser said.

On May 17, two Chinese J-11 warplanes intercepted a US Navy EP-3 Aries spy plane over the South China Sea.

A US RC-135 spy aircraft was buzzed by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 over the Baltic Sea on April 29, when the Russian fighter came within about 30 meters (100 feet) of the American plane and performed a “barrel roll” over it.

On April 21, a Soviet-era Mig-31, which is known as the world’s fastest supersonic jet, intercepted a a US Navy P-8 spy plane over Russia’s Far East.

The incident occurred days after two Russian Sukhoi Su-24 warplanes performed “simulated attack” passes over the USS Donald Cook destroyer in the Baltic Sea, prompting harsh reactions from US Secretary of State John Kerry who called the move “reckless” and “provocative,” saying the US had every right to shoot the planes down.

Draitser argued that “there is no real reason challenging” Moscow and Beijing in the volatile regions as a “catastrophic mistake” there could lead to a “major global conflict.”

“It is that the United States is reckless to send its naval assets right to Russia’s border for the purpose of provocation… that’s why global war’s on the table.”

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