HOW FAR WILL THE BEAR PROWL?

Japan Claims Russia Breached Its Airspace Moscow Denies Accusation; Abe Government, Already Sparring With Beijing, Now Faces Island Headache Up North as Well. Updated 12/15/2015

The Islands disputed with Russia are in the extreme upper right hand corner of the map.

  Enlarged Detail

By CHESTER DAWSON in Tokyo and BRIAN SPEGELE in Beijing
Associated Press
February 7, 2013

"TOKYO—Japan said Russian fighter jets intruded on its airspace for the first time in five years, raising tensions between the two countries at the same time that Tokyo is engaged in a similar high-stakes tangle with China."

"Russia quickly denied Japan's accusation, but the simultaneous spats on both Japan's northern and southern borders underscore the regional security challenges faced by a new Japanese prime minister elected on a promise to toughen his country's defense of its islands. It comes as the U.S.—Japan's chief military ally—has vowed to raise its presence in Asia, but the U.S. also is facing across-the-board budget cuts and seeking to reduce its global military footprint as it winds down a decade of wars."

"Certainly, they are testing us and using the opportunity created by the Chinese diversion," said Narushige Michishita, a Northeast Asia security expert at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies."

Link To full story : American Admiralty Books Safety & Privacy Policies    

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324590904578289590050103704.html

EDITORIAL NOTE: Trouble from the Bear couldn't come to Japan at a worse time thanks to the insults to her sovereignty from China over her southern most islands. It seems that while China is unofficially hinting to Australia that there could be a nuclear bombardment in her future for taking the side of the U.S. "Tiger" and the Japanese "Wolf", the Dragon and the Bear are snapping at Japan's feet and head.

 Of course Russian pressure on the Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and the U.S. to give up their Arctic continental shelves to the Bear are unrelenting. Iran threatens to close off the oil tanker routes, piracy is on the rise. In short the U.S. Navy, still the worlds  most powerful, is engaged all over the world but now its trying to do the job with about a third of the ships it operated during the Cold War. The more we examine the naval challenges that Namazu has been writing about the more we realize the giant catfish has something in his English Speaking naval union Idea. 

 If the Rest of the English speaking world  were to start up a coordinated naval build up it would be starting out from a position ahead. The English speaking world could easily pull way ahead of China and Russia collectively and probably stay there with relative ease for twenty years. The Dragon and the Bear are logical "Thug States" they don't bully the powerful. Maybe after 20 years of an unchallenged international oceanic regime they might no longer be inclined to push the envelope.