Military Aviation > Defence in General

NATO QRA

<< < (3/3)

Valiant1:
I'm a little lost here guys...can someone explain to me why NATO is flying patrols near the Russian border? Wouldn't that provoke the Russians?  And what is QRA? I would appreciate any information...thanks guys.

Webmaster:
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are part of NATO. One of the foundations of NATO (article 5) is that the airspace of its members is defended, so monitored and air policed, for this all NATO states have aircraft standing-by on Quick Reaction Alert. These new member countries do not have their own fighter capability so NATO provides QRA for them. Also Italy provides QRA for Slovenia. And the US has been providing QRA for Iceland since the beginning of NATO I think.

Not flying the patrols, would maybe give less chance of provocation, but then you are ignoring the rights of these NATO countries and just using them as bufferzone. You make them members, but you don't defend their airspace...that would be stupid. Russia recognises these states, so it should also recognise their right to join alliances and have their airspace defended. Russia just has to follow the regulations for entering their airspace.

alyster:
Well with or with out the QRA russians would still be pissed at NATO for haveing Baltic states in it.  ;D
I just today saw a quite new russian made map of how many people have HIV or AIDS in different countries in the world - and to my suprise they had painted Soviet Union borders on it  :-X So it isn't about flying next to Russia, it's about flying over lands which use to submit to them.

Well to your words - near the russian border. Accually we have no border. There is no such thing as official Estonian - Russian border(read: in some parts EU has no border with Russia). Russia violates the Tartu's peacethreaty and kinda occupies some parts which officially should belong to Estonia(and EU and NATO now). These are Ivangorod and Petserimaa. And Estonian goverment is stupid enough not to let them go and sign a border threaty with out them, altough there are all most no estonians left on these lands.
However what we do have is an economical line  ;D ;D ;D to west from it is EU and to east  is CIS.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page