Blue Horizons Alternative Futures Resurgent Russia

In August 2007, Major General Pavel Androsov, Commander of the Russian Strategic Bomber Force, announced with "a bit of flair" that two of his TU-95 bombers had flown from Russia to the U.S. military base in Guam during the Valiant Shield 2007 exercises and had "exchanged smiles" with U.S. fighter pilots before returning to Russia. The question is what was the motivation behind their smiles? Were they simply friendly gestures or something more akin to Jack Nicholson's evil smile in the movie "The Shining" when his axe-wielding character announced his return - "Here's Johnny!" While this recent exchange of high-altitude pleasantries is only one in a series of provocative actions that Russia has taken over the past several months (similar airborne encounters have occurred off the coast of Alaska, Norway, Japan, Iceland, and the United Kingdom), it would be premature to announce that the Russian military is once again America's military peer, far from it.