Su-24

This week, SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea. The Russian planes carried no missiles or bombs. Message: What are you Americans doing here?

In the South China Sea, U.S. planes overfly, and U.S. warships sail inside, the territorial limits of islets claimed by Beijing. In South Korea, U.S. forces conduct annual military exercises as warnings to a North Korea that is testing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles that can reach the United States.

US officials have confirmed that two Russian warplanes flew “simulated attacks” this week near a US warship stationed in international waters near Russia. Two unarmed Russian Su-24 fighter jets came extremely close to the USS Donald Cook that they created “a wake in the water”, US officials say. Sky News reports: The overflights are said to have occurred on Monday and Tuesday and were described by US officials as “more aggressive than anything we’ve seen in some time”.

In a rerun of what happened two years ago when in April 2014 a Russian Su-24 fighter jet flew repeatedly within 1000 yards of a US warship, CNN reports that the Pentagon is furious that while sailing in the Baltic Sea, US warship the USS Donald Cook had two "extremely close overflights" by unarmed Russian fighter jets.

According to the initial reports, two concerning encounters occurred Tuesday night in international waters. A third overflight, at a more acceptable distance, happened Sunday, according to the source.

Submitted by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

• Washington should think more than twice about allowing Turkey and Saudi Arabia, its Sunni allies, militarily to engage their Shiite enemies in Syria. Allowing Sunni supremacists into a deeper sectarian war is not a rational way to block Russian expansion in the eastern Mediterranean. And it certainly will not serve America's interests.

On Saturday, the geopolitical world was shocked when Turkey began shelling Aleppo, where the Syrian opposition has its back against the wall in the face of an aggressive advance by Hezbollah and the IRGC supported, of course, by Russian airstrikes.

To be sure, everyone knew Ankara and Riyadh would have to do something quick if they wanted to preserve the rebellion. Their proxies are being rolled up rapidly by Hassan Nasrallah’s army and Vladimir Putin’s air force juggernaut. But few expected the escalation would come so quickly.