I've been meaning to look into this story because the initial reports we first saw
here which was posted by our man Charles to add some contrast to the snubbing of new SecSt Jean F'n Kerry seemed overly dramatic (nuclear tipped cruise missiles, oh my!) and it turns out it is due to the all to typical lazy-assed journalism we have come to know and loath . It's not your fault Charles that the story has more holes in it than slab of Swiss cheese, it is the nature of the jurnolisters we are subject to, and it still does not detract from the contrast in that thread since the Rooskies did sortie the "bombers".
Black Five gives a good rundown here under the banner
The Big Bad Bear.
I have to chuckle at that, I guess anybody who served during the Cold War would, especially if they routinely had to deal with the Rooskies on sea and in air (probably on land too, don't want to leave anybody out!). In the Navy our Carrier Task Forces were always being shadowed by Russian spy ships nominally called "trawlers" and frequently Bears and Badgers would be sent to test our air defenses.
Many a time (especially since I served in Recon and Fighter squadrons) we would hear from the pilots what sort of hello's and shall we say "colorful exchanges" took place with our erstwhile foes as we escorted them away. Various digits and occasional pressed ham on glass being the more "colorful". I remember seeing photos of them taking pictures of us as we are taking pictures of them occurring quite often as well.
Even then we had doubts they would be carrying any nukes, but back then their air to ship delivery systems were not quite up to snuff, I serious doubt they ever wanted to risk losing one or experiencing any kind of technical difficulty that led to an all-out exchange. That is not to say that if the situation called for it they wouldn't arm them up, it just isn't there most likely mode of attack on a task force at sea with their submarine fleet and nuclear armed torpedoes available.
That the world renowned national security jurnolister Bill Gertz would pen such an declaratory opening line in his article indicates a level of disinterest in facts that one can only conclude is purposeful and that the purpose must be to scare people and have them spastically drop to their knees in thanks that we have such a brave, noble and immensely intelligent Commander in Chief in the White House to calm the situation and return sanity to the world.
OK, I felt some bile well up in my throat typing that last bit of ridiculousness.
Seriously, why does Bill want to scare us? I guess it gives impetus to Obama's desire for us to unilaterally disarm ourselves of all nuclear weapons, I guess the Guam scare proves the very presence of nuclear arms in our arsenal is a destabilizing effect, not the deterrent it has been for the past 63 years since the nuclear age began. I guess by this warped logic the next thing the Sage of the Washington Free Beacon will tell us is that the Iranians are persuing nuclear arms so that they can give them up.
Apparently the age of the low-information voter has led the jurnolista community to think everybody is stupid and too easy to fool after all.
Anyway, back to the Bears and Badgers. Nuclear armed? Highly doubtful. And even if they were, it would have to be cruise missiles, because as soon as they were acquired by us they would be targeted, they would have to fire as soon as they knew they were detected. Come in low like Slim Pickens and have a sweaty finger on the trigger. Really, what could go wrong?
Anyway, another overblown fear debunked.
