Before the Iraq war, I used to watch Arabic televison from hotels when I spent time in various middle eastern countries. There would often be news broadcasts about aircraft taking out pieces of defence infrastructure along the Iraq borders. I sometimes wondered how news management worked that meant this received coverage in some countries but was almost unreported in others.
Same today with the Tupolevs flying close to British airspace and being intercepted by the Royal Air Force. There have been reports of similar incursions into Norwegian airspace from around July but suddenly we are getting British news crews interviewing the Russian pilots who have been flying their deceptively museum piece looking bombers potentially loaded with high octane armaments.
Of course, we've also had the news today of Americans flying their own somewhat armed nuclear planes across the United States, so there seems to still be plenty of ways to acccidentally blow one another up.
here's one we prepared earlier - zoom in to take a look at the fighters and bombers
I count twelve USAF bases in the UK at present : Alconbury, Barford St John, Blenheim Crescent, Croughton, Fairford, Feltwell, Lakenheath, Menwith Hill, Mildenhall, Molesworth, Upwood and Welford. SInce the 1990s, these bases have been changed from cold war storage bunkers for cruise missiles and B52 runways into refuelling depots and extensive listening posts, but there is almost a suggestion that the recent wing waggling could start some tacit re-escalation.
For the purposes of novel writing or film making, the nuclear warplane backdrop creates an interesting context. For real life living, there have to be better ways to restart a flagging and edgily recessive global economy.
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