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The Mil & Aero Blog
Posted by John Keller
Lately I've been reading with interest some stories in the press that suggest an armed standoff between the navies of the United States and Russia in and around the Georgia port of Poti on the Black Sea. My favorite is a story in the The Times of London headlined US warship confronts Russian military in ‘tinderbox’ port. I had the impression that we had heavily armed warships of the U.S. and Russia tied up at opposite piers at general quarters with snarling gun crews at the ready. Then I noticed the specific U.S. warship involved, and breathed a sigh of relief. It's the It's the USS Mount Whitney. This important vessel, the flagship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, is a joint command ship. It's built to accommodate high-ranking joint-force commanders, and to serve as a combined-forces command-and-control headquarters. It also was the first U.S. Navy combatant to permanently accommodate women on board. The vessel's stock in trade is shipboard communications. It can handle reams of secure data through HF, UHF, VHF, SHF, and EHF communications links, which enable the ship's joint intelligence center and joint operations center to gather and fuse information while at sea. While it's C4I capabilities are awesome, the Mount Whitney is only lightly armed. It's got some air-defense missiles and a few guns. Suffice it to say that it just isn't one you'd send by itself into harm's way if you're looking for a fight. It's got too few guns and too many admirals on board to steam to where the shooting is. Although the Mount Whitney is in an obviously dangerous place, contrary to what you might surmise from the headlines, the Mount Whitney is on a peaceful mission to send aid to Georgia after Russian tanks and soldiers got through manhandling that small country on a mission of intimidation. Serious fighting surface ships -- like cruisers, carriers, and destroyers -- are designed to make noise and break things. The Mount Whitney, on the other hand, is on station in Georgia to help pick up the pieces
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 Welcome to the lighter side of Military & Aerospace Electronics. This is where our staff recount tales of the strange, the weird, and the otherwise offbeat. We could put news here, but we have the rest of our Website for that. Enjoy our scribblings, and feel free to add your own opinions. You might also get to know us in the process. Proceed at your own risk. 
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995. 
Courtney E. Howard is senior editor of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine. She is responsible for writing news stories and feature articles for the print publication, as well as composing daily news for the magazine's Website and assembling the weekly electronic newsletter. Her features have appeared in such high-tech trade publications as Military & Aerospace Electronics, Computer Graphics World, Electronic Publishing, Small Times, and The Audio Amateur.
John McHale is executive editor of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, where he has been covering the defense Industry for more than dozen years. During that time he also led PennWell's launches of magazines and shows on homeland security and a defense publication and website in Europe. Mr. McHale has served as chairman of the Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum and its Advisory Council since 2004. He lives in Boston with his golf clubs.
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For every action, each country has a reaction and it goes back and forth. This is going to go on for months and possibly years.
It will continue to escalate on other fronts around the world.
Example, South America, outside of Venezuela, the Russians plan to hold war games in America's backyard as a reaction to the U.S. sending in ships/aid to Georgia.
Furthermore, Russia is now making claims it has intentions of helping Iran with their nuclear ambitions. The United States will read that signal as a direct threat to their national security and so will Israel. This will in return be met with certain reactions to those situations as well. Then once the USA does something, next Russia does something else and so on... its a neverending cycle that escalates and returns the world to a state of having that finger on the button.
All this starts small, and pretty soon you have a new cold war. Eventually you are on the brink of worlwide destruction again like we had during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russia seems to be acting out of hurt pride (from losing the cold war, etc.) rather than through any sense of rationale about their future standing in the world.
It's very dangerous and in my opinion you underestimate the situation.
Sunday, September 7, 2008 8:48:00 PM EDT
Monday, September 8, 2008 8:28:00 AM EDT