NATO Readiness? Bumbling old Russian drone flies unintercepted across three NATO countries

Politics
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99 Red Balloons. I am an old guy who grew up with cold war media and music images about generals with a hair trigger accidentally starting a nuclear war. There must be a dozen movies about it.

Yet here I read that actively watching NATO forces in an arena of war simply failed to notice a 1970s era plane-sized (47-feet length) drone plunking along through NATO airspace until it ran out of fuel and fell into a parking lot.

Hungarian sources said it arrived in their airspace via Romania, again without being detected by air defenses. The event is being treated as a serious incident and Croatia launched an investigation to try to understand how an old Soviet-era drone was able to fly undetected through NATO airspace.

Is NATO really this vulnerable?

2

no fly zones are not in effect

(Nena was great)

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https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/official-drone-crashed-croatia-carried-bomb-83421615

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Missile defense tracked the object, but apparently no reaction.

5

The story says the Ukrainians are the side currently deploying this model of drone. Russian’s haven’t used it since the 90s. They inherited several at the breakup of the Soviet Union, just like their Mig 29s.

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What about the story that someone parachuted out? And they did find a parachute…I can discount that someone parachuted out…was it the bomb that was parachuted off the drone?

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With the number of cameras currently being pointed at that region of the world from low earth orbit it doesn’t seem super likely.

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Oh so . . . even tough our troops are on high alert, a russian built military aircraft flkies across three NATO countries and NATO did not detect it and/or respond. (of course they are on high alert mind your.)

“Dumm -dee-dumm. High alert shmigh-alert. Let’s go play golf and ignore that 47-foot attack aircraft cruising through three nations’ airspace. Nothing to see here folks. dumm dee dumm.”

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From the article;

“There are elements that indicated it could have come from both,” he said.

Either way, it’s strange that they let it cross two countries and enter a third flying AWAY from the battle zone.

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It was tracked by missile defense systems with no apparent reaction or notifications to higher ups. Maybe they were busy playing cards…

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Peace time ROE.

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Obviously I am sitting here in the cheap seats, but if this is readiness in a war zone on high alert, I suddenly feel a lot less safe.

Blame Donald Trump if you want to (I dunno "Trump didn’t give XYZ to Romania and Hungary, hurt their feelings or whatever,) I would like to know that the problem as been recognized and that it will be fixed.

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It is a peacetime mindset, not a combat mindset, that’s all it is.

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I can buy that. Although . . .
a “peacetime mindset, not a combat mindset” is what was happening last year and the year before etc… Your explanation sounds correct, and requires that we admit war in the Ukraine and state of alert in bordering countries meant as much as a ham sandwich.

“peacetime mindset, not a combat mindset” - - → before the invasion
“peacetime mindset, not a combat mindset” - - - > after the invasion
“peacetime mindset, not a combat mindset” - - - > after NATO declares an alert and starts deploying troops and tanks and planes.

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More than likely, it’s so old they mistook it for a cox engine model airplane.

Probably sounded like one too.

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They are still hoping the last 3 weeks are just a bad dream. Even though we all saw the writing on the wall, deep down most governments just didn’t believe that Putin would go to war.