Code associated with Russia hacking found on Vermont utility computer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A code associated with a broad Russian hacking campaign dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected on a laptop associated with a Vermont electric utility but not connected to the grid, the utility said on Friday.

"We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding," the Burlington Electric Department said in a statement.

"Our team is working with federal officials to trace this malware and prevent any other attempts to infiltrate utility systems. We have briefed state officials and will support the investigation fully."

The Department of Homeland Security alerted utilities on Thursday night about a malware code used in Grizzly Steppe, the Burlington Electric Department said.

"We acted quickly to scan all computers in our system for the malware signature. We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization’s grid systems," it said.

The matched malware code on the laptop may have resulted from a relatively benign episode, such as visiting a questionable website, a source familiar with the matter said, suggesting Russian hackers may not have been directly involved.

It was not clear when the incident occurred.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 presidential election.

The statement came after a Washington Post report that Russian hackers penetrated a Vermont utility.

Government and utility industry officials regularly monitor the nation's electrical grid because it is highly computerized and any disruptions can have disastrous implications for the functioning of medical and emergency services, the Post said.

A senior Obama administration official said the administration had sought in its sanctions announcement on Thursday to alert "all network defenders" in the United States so they could "defend against Russian malicious cyber activity."

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"This intrusion by itself was a minor incident that caused no damage," a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the incident and critical of Russian actions said on Friday night.

"However, we are taking it seriously because it has been tracked to familiar entities involved in a much broader and government-directed campaign in cyberspace and because the electric grid is a vulnerable and interconnected part of the nation's critical infrastructure," the official said.

Russia is widely considered responsible by U.S. officials and private-sector security experts for a December 2015 hack of Ukraine's power grid that knocked out the lights for about 250,000 people. That hack prompted National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers to say at a conference in March that it was a "matter of when, not if" a cyber adversary carried out a similar attack against the United States.

(Reporting by Eric Beech, Jeff Mason, Dustin Volz and John Walcott; Editing by Michael Perry)

 

China will raise most of the world to a developed level or go bust trying

China will raise most of the world to a developed level or go bust trying

China's One Belt One Road project will equal nine Marshall plans. China will spend 9% of GDP each year for 30 to 40 years

The long term plan will build rail, ports, airports, roads, energy production, factories and massive urban developments from China to Europe and in Asia, Africa and Europe. It will continue the development of China. It should have every area near a global middle class or at a fully developed level.

If successful it would be similar to the Roman Empire but without the political union.

The population impacted would be about the level of nine times Europe's population. 

20 to 30 years after the main 30 to 40 year effort the entire region could be lifted to current European levels or higher because of more advanced technology and infrastructure. 

The Marshall Plan engendered goodwill for the USA for decades and this effort will likely garner similar soft power benefits.

If Europe and America and the other developed countries get fully on board then nearly the entire world could be at a developed or near developed level in the 2070 timeframe.

For all of those who would wish for large fractions of GDP to not be spent on the military but on world economic development and raising the poor then this is what will be the vehicle for that wish.

Iran Is Ready To Attack Israel

The tension between Israel and Iran appears to be heightening. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), recently said: “Hezbollah has 100,000 missiles that are ready to hit Israel to liberate the occupied Palestinian territories if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes.”

He added: “Today, the grounds for the annihilation and collapse of the Zionist regime are [present] more than ever.” Salami warned that if Israel made the “wrong move,” it would come under attack.

Russian drone entered Israeli territory but IDF could not shoot down UAV

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah earlier claimed its fighters had sent the drone.

A Russian drone is thought to have entered Israeli territory in what is considered a human error. It was initially believed that the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) belonged to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The aircraft entered the Israeli airspace on 17 July from Syria and went as far as 4kms into Israel. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) tried to shoot down the vehicle at least three times but were unsuccessful. The IDF acknowledged the incident but said they were not aware who sent it.

Two surface-to-air Patriot missiles and another air-to-air missile from a fighter jet were fired at the drone but missed their target. The UAV went back to Syria after the brief aerial encounter.

Though Hezbollah had initially claimed responsibility for the drone, it has now emerged that the UAV belonged to Russian forces, reports the Israeli daily Haaretz. The newspaper said Russian officials have admitted that the breach was caused by "human error". However, Israeli media outlets have also speculated that it is possible the Moscow's forces are checking Israel's defence capabilities by sending a drone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin have held a phone call over the matter in which the Russian leader clarified it was an accident, added the report.

United States to Produce First New Nukes in Decades

The United States is about to rebuild its arsenal of B61 nuclear bombs to a new standard, ensuring they stay reliable while adding new capabilities including a "dial-a-yield" capability. The process is so extensive some critics charge that the modified bombs are essentially a new weapon, a development that could restart the nuclear arms race.

The Pentagon has many types of nuclear weapons, but currently the only true "bomb"—dropped from an aircraft and delivered to target by free fall flight—is the B61. First produced in the late 1960s, the B61 series of bombs can be carried carried by a number of combat aircraft, including the B-52 Stratofortress, B-2A Spirit, F-15E Strike Eagle, and F-16 Fighting Falcon. The F-35A Joint Strike Fighter will also be cleared to carry the new version of the bomb.

Now the National Nuclear Security Agency, or NNSA, has cleared the B61-12 to enter its last phase of development before production. Production will involve taking older versions of the bomb and updating them to the B61-12 standard. Washington insists that the update is critical to ensure the bombs remain reliable into the future.

In addition to the reliability update, the B61-12 has several new features. It has a new set of bolt-on tail fins that increase the range at which the bomb can be released and still hit its target. This increases aircraft survivability while allowing the pilot to avoid close-in air defenses. The bomb also has a new inertial navigation system accurate to 30 meters, without using the constellation of GPS navigation satellites that might be shot down in wartime.

Finally and perhaps most importantly it has a "dial-a-yield" mechanism that allows the operator to choose the explosive power of the bomb. The bomb can be set to the equivalent of a mere 300 tons of TNT, 1.5 kilotons of TNT, 10 kilotons, or 50 kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb, for comparison, was about 16 kilotons.

The B61-12 program is estimated to run approximately $10 billion dollars, to produce between 400 and 500 bombs. That breaks down to approximately $28 million per bomb, which will make it the most expensive U.S. nuclear bomb project ever. At one point, with gold at $1,619 an ounce, observers of the program noted the 700 pound bomb cost "1.5 Times its Weight in Solid Gold."

Critics of the B61 modernization believe that introducing a new bomb into the military arsenal at this point could restart a nuclear arms race with Russia and even China. They also charge that the "dial-a-yield" capability and and low yields could encourage the Commander-in-Chief to use them instead of conventional weapons.

Supporters of the weapon believe that modernizing the U.S.'s nuclear bomb stockpile will put bad actors on notice that Washington is serious about its nuclear policy. The upgrade will also give the U.S. expanded options for using the weapons, trading explosive yield for accuracy. Using smaller bombs in a conflict could prevent escalation to using larger ones. But let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Kenya May Ink EU Trade Deal Alone as Brexit Spooks Neighbors

Kenya May Ink EU Trade Deal Alone as Brexit Spooks Neighbors

Kenya may abandon 10 years of negotiating a trade deal with the European Union as part of the regional East African Community bloc and go it alone, to avoid having duties of as much as 30 percent slapped on its exports from October.

A so-called Economic Partnership Agreement between Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi and the EU is on hold after Tanzania’s government said two weeks ago it’s reluctant to sign any deal because of “recent developments affecting the bloc’s union.” The U.K. voted in a referendum on June 23 to withdraw from the bloc, ending a 40-year partnership. Uganda said last week it also wants to delay signing the deal.

“We would like to sign it together; the desire is that we sign it together,” Kenyan Foreign Secretary Amina Mohammed said in an interview in the capital, Nairobi, last week. “If we get to a stage where we can’t do that then we also have the right to make our own sovereign decisions.”

The negotiated EPA would give members of the EAC immediate duty-free quota-free access to the EU for all exports. The Brexit decision is complicating trade negotiations as ministers from around the world gather this week for the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi, where the EPA accord has been scheduled to be signed.

The EU imported goods worth 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) from the EAC last year, data from the European Commission shows. Kenya exported 126 billion shillings ($1.2 billion) worth of goods to the EU in 2015, according to the national statistics office.

“Countries like Tanzania, which said it will postpone signing the agreement with the EU might want to wait and see what happens with Brexit,” Willemien Viljoen, a researcher at the Tralac Trade Law Centre in Stellenbosch, South Africa, said by phone. “That will affect other members of the East African Community.”

Brexit may curb capital flows into East Africa, hinder trade and investment, weaken exchange rates and damage economic stability in the region, central bank governors from the EAC trading bloc said in a statement to reporters in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on July 14. Uganda wants to delay the signing the EPA to ensure the deal is signed collectively, Nairobi-based Business Daily newspaper reported on Friday, citing Julius Onen, permanent secretary for the nation’s trade ministry.

No Excuse

“There may be some dynamics about East Africa negotiating market access to Britain, but there is no sufficient reason to dither the EAC’s engagement with the EU on the basis of Brexit,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said in an interview in Nairobi. “Brexit should not be an excuse.”

If the deal is not signed by Oct. 1, Kenya, as the only member of the East African Community not classified as a so-called least-developed country, could lose all its preferential access to the EU.

“The partners in the region realize there is a time pressure, so does the European Union,” Betty Maina, Kenya’s principal secretary for the East African Community, said in an interview on July 14. “So we are looking at all measures and engagements to ensure you don’t miss October 1.”

Kenyan farmers shipped produce such as carnations, green beans and avocados worth 90.4 billion shillings globally in 2015, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Together with tea, fresh-produce exports generate the bulk of foreign-exchange earnings in East Africa’s biggest economy.

Flower exports by Kenya, which accounts for more than a third of the stems sold in Europe, may face taxes of as much as 20 percent unless the agreement is signed by Oct. 1, said Jane Ngige, chief executive officer of the Kenya Flower Council.

“We are trying to see how we will get out of the quagmire we are in,” Ngige said by phone.

Hillary Clinton Leads Donald Trump in New National Poll

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is ahead of her GOP rival Donald Trump in a new national poll released on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Clinton leads Trump by 46% to 41%, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which was released on Sunday. That five-point margin remains the same from aJournal/NBC News survey taken last month before the FBI criticized Clinton’s private email practices as “extremely careless” while she was secretary of state.

The poll also found that Clinton has a huge advantage among African-Americans with 84% supporting Clinton compared to 7% backing Trump. Clinton also had the support of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 by 55% to 32%, and women by 52% to 37%.

Trump is ahead among whites by 50% to 37%, as well as among men by 46% to 39%, according to the survey.

The poll interviewed 1,000 registered voters between July 9 and July 13. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1%.

Brexit minister: Some EU migrants may have to leave UK

LONDON –  The minister in charge of negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union says some European Union citizens may not be allowed to stay after the U.K. leaves the bloc.

Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Mail on Sunday newspaper that he wants "a generous settlement for EU migrants here now and a generous settlement for British citizens in the EU."

He dismissed suggestions the estimated 3 million EU nationals in Britain might have to leave, but said if there is a surge in arrivals before the deadline, the government may have to set a cutoff date.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has been criticized for refusing to guarantee the right of EU citizens to remain. She says she needs to ensure that Britons living in EU countries get the same right.

S-400 technology helps Seoul blunt Pyongyang threat By Rakesh Krishnan Simha, Special to Russia Beyond the Headlines

S-400 technology helps Seoul blunt Pyongyang threat

By Rakesh Krishnan Simha, Special to Russia Beyond the Headlines

Advanced missile technology that went into Russia's deadly S-400 Triumf missile defense system is powering the South Korean ballistic and air defense missile programs.

Partly in response to North Korea's deployment of nuclear missiles and submarines, Seoul has beefed up its armaments industry with generous doses of Russian technology. Among the most critical projects are a submarine-launched ballistic missile and the M-SAM Cheolmae-2 medium- to long-range surface-to-air missile.

South Korea hopes to one-up the North, which is applying the technology of the Russian S-300 missile to its SLBMs. According to Lee Choon-geun, senior researcher at the Korean Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea "uses more stable technology" from the S-400, which is a generation ahead of the S-300.

The S-400 is a highly advanced missile with embedded cold-launching technology. Cold-launched missiles are critical for South Korea's brand new 3000-ton Jangbogo-III submarine. During a cold launch, the rocket engine fires after the missile reaches a certain altitude. This mechanism allows ballistic missiles to be fired from under water, thereby making it possible for the submarine to remain submerged. A high-ranking military official told Korea Joongang Daily the development of the new SLBM is expected to be completed by 2020.

The Daily reports the South Korean Navy's arsenal currently includes the submarine-launched cruise missile. However, as North Korea's efforts to develop SLBM technology have almost reached completion, the need within the South Korean military to initiate a response has become urgent.

"Although the SLBM may lack the accuracy of the SLCM, which is equipped with a guidance system, its velocity and destructive capability are significantly greater," says Kim Hyeok-soo, former rear admiral and the first commander of a South Korean submarine flotilla. "The deployment of the speedy and stealthy SLBM will allow the South Korean Navy to deliver a blow to North Korea before the situation even escalates to emergency levels."

Air defense of the South

Meanwhile, the M-SAM is being jointly developed by Samsung Group and French electronics defense contractor Thales Group. Richard Weitz, director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, writes: "The M-SAM will use S-400 missile technology provided from the Almaz Antey Joint Stock Co., including proprietary information from the S-400's multifunction X-band radar. LG Corp.'s missiles' guidance systems are expected to also use Russian design elements."

The M-SAM Cheolmae-2 is designed to engage both ballistic missiles and aircraft. If the South Koreans are able to achieve anything close to Russia's S-400, they will have a fearsome weapon with which to take on the North's armory of ballistic missiles.

The S-400 has a tracking range of 600 km and the ability to hit targets 400 km away at a blistering speed of 17,000 km an hour – faster than any existing aircraft. First deployed by Russia in 2010, each S-400 battalion has eight launchers, a control center, radar and 16 missiles available as reloads.

"Given its extremely long range and effective electronic warfare capabilities, the S-400 is a game-changing system that challenges current military capabilities at the operational level of war," Paul Giarra, president, Global Strategies and Transformation, told Defense News.

According to Air Power Australia, "The S-300P/S-400 family of surface-to-air missile systems is without doubt the most capable SAM system in widespread use in the Asia Pacific region." It adds: "While the S-300P/S-400 series is often labeled 'Russia's Patriot,' the system in many key respects is more capable than the U.S. Patriot series, and in later variants offers mobility performance and thus survivability much better than that of the Patriot."

For decades, South Koreans have lived in fear of North Korea's missile threats. The new generation missiles will finally allow South Korea to close that window of vulnerability.

Changing Russia-South Korea defense partnership

As a key U.S. ally and loyal customer of American weapons, South Korea is an unlikely buyer of Russian weapons. In fact, Seoul's defense trade with Moscow grew in an unlikely way. In 1991, after the Cold War ended, South Korea extended $1 billion in cash loans and a $470 million commodities loan as a reward for Moscow's recognition of South Korea. However, the Soviet Union went under the same year.

Unable to repay the loans in cash, Russia began supplying what it had in plenty – military equipment such as T-90 tanks, infantry combat vehicles and helicopters. The first two arms-for-debt deals – all known as Brown Bear – were inked in 1995 and 2003.

However, Seoul did not want to keep importing ready-made weapons platforms, even if the South Korean military was thrilled with the high-octane Russian military gear. There were two reasons for this. One, since Seoul is closely integrated with America's military ecosystem, Russian weapons are not easily integrated. This is, of course, an old American ploy to edge out rivals and increase the market share for its own weapons. At any rate, the South Koreans decided to stop wholesale purchases of Russian weapons.

Secondly, the South Koreans became more ambitious. They wanted to build a world class military industrial complex in step with their dominance in a number of commercial sectors. The government's Defense Reform 2020 initiative is aimed at developing the country's indigenous capabilities via defense R&D. The transfer of cutting-edge S-400 technology is part of this plan.

Seung-Ho Joo and Tae-Hwan Kwak write in their book Korea in the 21st Century: "South Korea may find economic benefits in military cooperation with Russia. Seoul and Moscow can jointly develop advanced technology and high-tech weapons and sell them in the world market. The relationship between the two countries may be mutually complementary: Russia has two advantages in basic sciences and advanced technologies, while South Korea has strengths in marketing skills and capital."

The S-400 isn't cheap – it costs around $500 million per battalion. That's why only countries with deep pockets like China and India (which is negotiating a deal) will be fielding this weapon. But to the credit of the South Koreans, they beat both the Chinese and the Indians to this prized weapon by more than a decade.

Flip side of tech transfers

To be sure, Russia could face some hiccups over the transfer of such leading edge weapons. South Korea's close alliance with the United States means there is a chance of sensitive Russian technology ending up in America's hands. One of the reasons Russia is not unduly worry about U.S. stealth fighters such as the F-22 and F-25 is that the Russian air defense system is considered impregnable to these aircraft. The S-400 is one of those wonder weapons in the Russian arsenal that have neutralized the threat from fifth-generation fighters.

However, if South Korea passes on the secrets of the S-400 to the United States, it would compromise Russian – and Chinese – air defense to some extent. For instance, the 1976 flight of a Soviet defector in the top secret MiG-25 fighter forced Russia to produce new radar and missile systems for the aircraft at considerable cost.

Secondly, if South Korea integrates the S-400-based M-SAM into the American missile defense system, Russia could potentially have to face off its own missiles in any future conflict with the United States.

But with the next generation S-500 missiles coming online, Russia will not lose too much sleep over any potential leak of secrets. For, once you export something, it's a given that your competitors will get their hands on it sooner or later.

This article originally appeared at Russia Beyond the Headlines.

Chief of US Naval Operations explains why he's not afraid of China's 'carrier killer' missile

Speaking at a Center for a New American Security conference on Monday, the US Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, explained why China's DF-21D "carrier killer" antiship ballistic missile isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The DF-21D, an indigenously created, precision-guided missile capable of sinking a US aircraft carrier with a single shot, has a phenomenal range of up to 810 nautical miles, while US carriers' longest-range missiles can travel only about 550 miles away.

Therefore, on paper, the Chinese can deny aircraft carriers the luxury of wading off of their shores and forcing them to operate outside of their effective range.

But Richardson contested that notion.

"I think there is this long-range precision-strike capability, certainly," Richardson acknowledged. But "A2/AD [anti-access/area-denial] is sort of an aspiration. In actual execution, it's much more difficult."

China's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities (ISR), bolstered by a massive modernization push and advanced radar installations on the reclaimed islands in the South China Sea, have theoretically given them the ability to project power for hundreds of miles.

"The combination of ubiquitous ISR, long-range precision-strike weapons takes that to another level and demands a response," said Richardson, adding that China's extension into the Pacific created a "suite of capabilities" that were of "pressing concern."

ut the US Navy won't be defeated or deterred by figures on paper.

Richardson said:

"In the cleanest form, the uninterrupted, frictionless plane, you have the ability to sense a target much more capably and quickly around the world, you've got the ability, then, to transmit that information back to a weapon system that can reach out at a fairly long range and it is precision-guided ... You're talking about hundreds of miles now, so that raises a challenge."

"Our response would be to inject a lot of friction into that system at every step of the way [and] look to make that much more difficult," he continued.

Richardson was clear that China's purported capabilities were only speculations.

"What you see often is a display of 'Here's this launcher, here's a circle with a radius of 700 miles, and it's solid-color black inside' ... And that's just not the reality of the situation," he said.

"You've got this highly maneuverable force that has a suite of capabilities that the force can bring to bear to inject uncertainty," Richardson continued.

Richardson also went on to address the dual aircraft-carrier deployments in the Pacific and theMediterranean, saying that the deployments afforded a rare opportunity for "high-end war fighting and training," as carrier groups rarely get to train with each other in realistic, not just theoretical, situations.

Putin’s Russia is a poor, drunk soccer hooligan

Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia.

For most of the 20th century, what Moscow thought and did mattered from Havana to Hanoi. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union left behind a battered, broken shell of a country. When the Berlin Wall fell, so did Russia’s status in the world.

A boozy Boris Yeltsin was a fitting representative for a country whose average life expentency tumbled a staggering five years in the wake of the fall. There were the coups, industrial collapse, spreading corruption, and shrinking borders. After generations of fearing the Soviet Bear, the West patted it on the head, sent it some aid, and turned its eyes with expectation towards the emerging powers of Brazil, India, and China.

But Vladimir Putin’s rise to power marked a sea change in Russia’s fortunes. How the world sees Russia began to shift. The often bare-chested leader consciously cultivated a new brand, for himself, and for the country. Putin’s new Russia was a country that mattered again.

Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent data, the Russian economy is approximately the same size as Australia and slightly smaller than South Korea. As an exporter, it is now less important than Belgium, Mexico, and Singapore.

And it is poor. The World Bank ranks Russia’s GDP per capita below Lithuania, Equatorial Guinea, and Kazakhstan. A larger proportion of its population lives below the poverty rate than in Indonesia, India, or Sri Lanka. It is ranked 67th in the world in the Global Competitive Index and 66th in the UN’s Human Development Index.

These economic woes are having serious social impacts. There are now fewer doctors than a decade ago. Life expectancy in Russia is nine years less than in the United States and is declining. Infant morality rate is two to three times higher than most of the Western world. Its alcoholism rate is now the highest on the planet, three times North America’s; and consumption of alcohol has doubled in the past 20 years. Not surprisingly, the Russian statistical agency Rosstat has identified aging and shrinking demographics as the single biggest challenge facing the country over the next 30 years.

Intellectually, Russia is a distant speck in the rearview mirror. Once, esteemed Soviet universities educated the engineers and doctors of the developing world. Now, the United Nations ranks Russia’s education system behind nearly every other European country, and on par with the Pacific island of Palau. The technological leader that launched Sputnik now produces fewer patents per capita than Iceland. Its scientific publications are cited less often than Finland’s.

In nearly every indicator of health, wealth, and influence, Russia ranks below even the middle powers. What do they have left? Guns and bombs mostly. At 8,000 nuclear warheads, it still has 700 more than the United States. It ranks second globally for combat aircraft, military satellites, and nuclear submarines. Moscow’s military budget has increased every year since Putin’s arrival in 1999.

RELATED: Russian insider says state-run doping fueled Sochi Olympics

But even these numbers are misleading. According to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Institute, Russia’s defense budget is still less than China, and Saudi Arabia. It is roughly on par with India, France, and the United Kingdom. And it is nine times smaller than the Pentagon’s budget.

The fact is, if it wasn’t for Syria, the Crimea, and some ageing warheads, Russia would get as much global attention as Slovakia or perhaps Wales. Not coincidentally, those are two nations that recently played Russia in the ongoing European soccer championship. In both cases, the results were resounding defeats for the Russians despite their opponents being one-twentieth and one-fortieth its size, respectively. In spite of these resounding defeats, which have relegated them to the bottom of the league tables, the Russian team, and its fans, still dominated the news.

When we talk about the Eurocup, we talk about Russian hooligans rioting in the stands, attacking other spectators, and even assaulting tourists on the trains home. Or we marvel at the belligerent response from Moscow when Igor Lebedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian parliament and a senior official in the Russian soccer official tweeted “I don’t see anything wrong with the fans fighting. Quite the opposite, well done lads, keep it up!”

Lebedev understands a lesson that has been well taught by Putin: If you can’t compete on the field, make as much noise as you can off it. Russia is so far behind economically, technologically, socially, and politically, it just doesn’t matter anymore. But it can still get our attention, and it is.

When Russia next moves its tanks to the border, we should take it seriously. It has a lot of tanks (although less than Pakistan). But we should also remember that this is not a world power. By most indicators, it’s not even a middle power. Russia is a soccer hooligan: poor, drunk, and frustrated it can’t win anymore. It can only throw beer bottles from the bleachers.

U.S. and Russian Jets Clash Over Syria

American and Russian fighter jets had a tense showdown in the skies above Syria as the Russians dropped bombs on U.S.-backed rebels.

RUSSIA SU-34

U.S. and Russian fighter jets bloodlessly tangled in the air over Syria on June 16 as the American pilots tried and failed to stop the Russians from bombing U.S.-backed rebels in southern Syria near the border with Jordan.

The aerial close encounter underscores just how chaotic Syria’s skies have become as Russia and the U.S.-led coalition work at cross-purposes, each dropping bombs in support of separate factions in the five-year-old civil war.

The near-clash also highlights the escalating risk of American and Russian forces actually coming to blows over Syria, potentially sparking a much wider conflict between the world’s leading nuclear powers.

RUSSIA SU-34

The incident began when at least two twin-engine Su-34 bombers, some of Moscow’s most advanced warplanes, struck what the Pentagon described as a “border garrison”housing around 200 U.S.-supported rebels in At Tanf on the Syrian side of the Syria-Jordan border.

The rebels had been “conducting counter-ISIL operations in the area,” the Pentagon stated on June 18, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.

The United States and its allies in Syria clearly did not expect the air strike. The rebels in At Tanf are party to a shaky ceasefire agreement between rebel forces and the regime of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad—and, by extension, the Russian military contingent backing Al Assad. The Los Angeles Times reported that Russian planes had not previously been active over At Tanf.

The Su-34s’ initial strike wounded, and perhaps killed, some of the rebels in At Tanf.

The U.S. Navy scrambled F/A-18 fighters to intercept the Russians, the Los Angeles Times reported. The Navy has deployed two aircraft carriers to the region for strikes on ISIS. As the F/A-18s approached the Su-34s, officials with U.S. Central Command—which oversees America’s wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan—used a special hotline to contact their Russian counterparts directing Russia’s own intervention in Syria.

US F-18

Arriving over At Tanf, the American pilots apparently spoke directly to the Russian aviators. “Pilots CAN communicate with one another on a communications channel set up to avoid air accidents,” Central Command confirmed in a statement to The Daily Beast.

Washington and Moscow had established the hotline as part of a so-called “Safety of Flight Memorandum of Understanding” that the two governments signed in October specifically in order to avoid the kind of aerial confrontation that occurred over Syria last week.

With the American jets flying close enough to visually identify the Su-34s, the Russians departed the air space over At Tanf. Some time shortly thereafter, the F/A-18s ran low on fuel and left the area in order to link up with an aerial tanker. That’s when the Su-34s reportedly returned to At Tanf —and bombed the rebels again.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the second strike killed first-responders assisting survivors of the first bombing run.

The next day, senior U.S. Defense Department officials organized an “extraordinary” video conference with Russian counterparts to discuss the incident. The meeting included Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs Elissa Slotkin and U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, a strategic planner on the Pentagon’s joint staff, plus unspecified Russian Ministry of Defense officials.

“Department officials expressed strong concerns about the attack on the coalition-supported counter-ISIL forces at the At Tanf garrison, which included forces that are participants in the cessation of hostilities in Syria, and emphasized that those concerns would be addressed through ongoing diplomatic discussions on the cessation of hostilities,” Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook explained in a statement.

"Regarding safety, department officials conveyed that Russia’s continued strikes at At Tanf, even after U.S. attempts to inform Russian forces through proper channels of on-going coalition air support to the counter-ISIL forces, created safety concerns for U.S. and coalition forces,” Cook continued. “Department officials requested Russian responses to address those concerns.”

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov confirmed, via the country’s state-owned media, that the teleconference took place—but he did not specify the results of the “extraordinary” meeting.

Russian warplanes had previously shadowed planes belonging to the U.S.-led coalition over Syria, but the coalition always described the Russians’ behavior as “professional.” By contrast, in April Russian Su-24 bombers repeatedly buzzed the U.S. Navy warship USS Donald Cook while the vessel sailed in international waters in the Black Sea. A Pentagon spokesman called the Russians’ actions in that incident “provocative and unprofessional.”

The Kremlin should be keenly aware of the potential for unwanted—and potentially destabilizing—bloodshed that exists in the air over Syria. In November, a Russian Su-24 bomber flying a mission over Syria strayed over the Syria-Turkey border into Turkey—and a Turkish F-16 fighter promptly shot it down.

The two Russian crew members ejected. One flier died when Syrian rebels on the ground opened fire on his parachute. Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces launched a complex rescue mission that ultimately retrieved the surviving pilot. One Russian marine died and a helicopter was destroyed during that operation.

The fallout from the November incident continues, with Russia and Turkey exchanging threats—and Moscow imposing economic sanctions on Ankarra including limits on some food imports to Russia from Turkey.

It’s not clear how close the U.S. fighters came to attacking and potentially shooting down the Su-34s over At Tanf. Central Command declined to say what the rules of engagement are for American pilots flying over Syria. “ROE are actually specifics that we don’t get into,” Central Command said in a statement.

The last time a U.S. military warplane shot down a Russian—actually, Soviet—plane was in 1953, over Korea or China, depending on which historians you believe. The last time a Russian or Soviet warplane shot down an American aircraft was in 1970, when a U.S. Army plane strayed over Armenia.