UKC

The forced landing of the RyanAir flight yesterday was an atrocious act.  An independent act of incredible boldness, or a vassal in action?  It's tempting to speculate.

ADSBExchange shows two US signals intelligence turboprops orbiting over Lithuania today, and a British RC-135 out of Waddington currently overflying Poland headed for Ukraine on the southern side of Belarus.   There's also a US drone heading south from over Estonia currently on a heading for Belarus, that has recently skirted north along the border between Lithuania and Belarus.  It seems like there's quite a few eyes and ears in the sky around them right now.  There can always be others that have their transponders turned off.  There's a few US and Eurpoean military transports heading East as well.  

It's hard to see an appropriate diplomatic solution to this incident, but it's even hard to imagine the consequences of any other restitution being containable, so have the lines just been re-defined once again on what we're prepared to let Putin and his allies achieve?

Something else perhaps not unrelated that's had very little news coverage; the mysterious incidents of sudden onset brain injury at various foreign US state department facilities has now spread to the Washington, DC area - https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/mysterious-health-incidents-rise-to...

Hmmm.  I'm not saying this is impossible, especially in a situation in an embassy building in an unfriendly country, but multiple reports of it happening out of doors, including in the US?  I absolutely wouldn't put it past the Russians and others to be trying this out but, once the idea becomes well-publicised, it's very difficult to avoid people attributing every headache or nosebleed to nefarious microwaves.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness

That's certainly one of the possibilities to get mooted.  Another would be that it's some unintended effect of a counter surveillance system, perhaps one that uses high frequency phased array beam forming systems to produce a lower frequency beat in specific locations.  Both give non-Russian common factors.

Even Putin struggles with Belarus so my Russian friends tell me.Its the European equivalent of North Korea.

Questions  maybe should also be asked about why  Protasevich decided it was a good idea to fly into their airspace in the first place, suggesting that political oppenents  need to be a bit more wary. The same applies to Hong Kong dissidents etc.

The one thing we should be grateful for is that Belarus did not shoot the plane down, which is probably what would have happened 20 plus years ago..........

Pretty grim overall

There's a recent Science Versus podcast that looked into this in some detail. IIRC they could find little justification for any theory other than a collective psychology explanation.

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/76hgkmv/havana-syndrome-did-a-secr...

Definitely worth a listen, as are many of the other Science Versus episodes.

Magical rays - undetectable, unknown to physics, unknown to medicine...

It's either Nobel Prize winning science or scientific nonsense.

I suspect scientific nonsense even though I'm hyper suspicious of Putin, his cronies and his polonium or nerve agent poisoning assassins.

Why “undetectable”?  I wasn’t aware that broadband RF spectrums have been released from the time and location of any purported exposure, so there is no basis to say they were being actively looked for but not detected, and so to infer they are undetectable.  Undetected does not mean undetectable, but if the attacks are random, and tightly focused beams, detection is unlikely.  There’s nothing magical about intense EM fields at high frequencies causing damage.

No concrete theory is evidenced.  The various effects are evidenced.  There are I think scientifically plausible mechanism for an RF device to do some of the damage seen, so it’s not “nonsense”.  Some of the publicly demonstrated effects could be enough to seriously freak someone out (who was not expecting it) causing a massive stress response.

It’s an incredible stretch that there are foreign agents running around with such a device taking pot shots at US diplomats and not being noticed, especially given likely antennae requirements.  Then again someone once fired an RPG in to Vauxhall Cross from a London park and walked away scott free, all unnoticed.  

It’s also an incredible stretch that several CIA people hospitalised themselves with significant medical symptoms through the power of their minds.

I think it’s fair to assume there’s a lot about this that isn’t public.  I’m very much keeping an open mind on the possibilities.  

Edit: the symptoms are variable and low probability.  It might not even need a mass psychology explanation; they may be unrelated, in un-correlated events that are being over interpreted.  But given we’re subject to the mushroom principle I prefer to keep an open mind...

I would say independant although possibly with Russian sign off. Just because from the scant information I have seen he seems to be focussed on his own country and not Russia so no direct reason for Putin to go after him.

There was a Joint Stars plane hanging around that general area as well which suddenly disappeared so suspect they hit the off switch.

I have seen various comments about it.  It all seems somewhat confused as to whether there really is anything or not. Seen some stuff suggesting rather strong weedkiller is in use by the USA which could give issues. That its now in Washington does make it seem rather improbable that its targeted enemy action. Maybe in your own country but deploying something in your targets capital seems a good way to get found out.

In fairness forcing down passenger jets is a somewhat rare occurence. There was that Snowden case but cant think of any others?

Everyone will get excited for a week, talk about tough measures and sanctions, then Europe will return to buying oil and gas from Russia and Belarus, and finish the new pipe line. Germany needs the exports and the gas, it's not in a position to get to anti about it. 

Because I assume that the US has continuously tried to detect stuff designed to be difficult to detect since at least 1952.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

This seems more likely than the various other possibilities. There are thousands of US embassy staff. I doubt they are more immune to illness or non-specific symptoms than the rest of us.

I wondered that - perhaps he didn't know the flight path of the plane was over Belarus, or didn't expect the plane to be forced down.

You can bounce a laser off a window and record the conversations inside the room. It's no great stretch to think that there might be similar techniques using other forms of rf.

https://lifehacker.com/build-a-laser-microphone-to-eavesdrop-on-conversatio...

The US embassy in London has some funky, but low key, security going on. Note the moat, disguised as a duck pond. Subtle, gracefully curved concrete walls, that look nice, but keep bad guys away. The funky artwork on the windows, to deflect things?

https://images.skyscrapercenter.com/building/usembassylondon_rendering-from...

I'd post more, but there is some bloody annoying black helicopter buzzing about outside and I've just got a cracking migraine.

Sure, but unless I missed it, zero information on presence or absence of signals has been released.  Any such release of information would be difficult I think given the sensitive nature of any monitoring systems.  So we do not know if they are undetected, and so we can not infer they are  undetectable.

I also think there’s a possibility for much higher or lower frequencies than are used in comms to be employed, with a beat frequency between two much higher beams of differing origin occurring at their convergence, giving a highly localised region of convention microwave excitation without microwaves being present outside of the convergence zone.  No magic, nothing medically or physically impossible.  Other such measures are possible - for instance non linear microscopy sends very high peak power pulsed IR light in to biological tissue that excites a visible wavelength fluorescent state by multi photon absorption.  I’ve never looked in to practical applications of these mechanisms in the RF, but the take home message is that electromagnetic waves and their interaction with matter aren’t as trivial as people tend to think.

It seems very improbable, but I don’t think there’s justification to write it off as impossible.

Indeed.  Of course, creating a centre to nucleate random reports of illness is a great way to mask the few that were real.  We could go round in these circles of though indefinitely.

As with many such things, conspiracy angles and the mushroom principle mean it’s basically impossible to determine the truth, unless you’re Fox Mulder.

Exactly what the Soviets were doing in 1945.

Mainly to deflect car bombs but spy novels have long featured windowless RF shielded rooms swept for bugs and I expect real embassies have secure rooms and maybe conductive windows generally.

Back in 2007 I made a camera that could real time motion track a bright object at > 100,000 KHz.  A party piece demonstration was to image a distant candle flame, from the motion of which audio near the candle could be demodulates and played.  You don’t need to stinking lasers and it’s possible that an analog system could be built within reach of 19th century technology.

It only really worked when playing Queen directly at the candle through a 400 W amplifier.  Perhaps I should have used a bigger candle and not a tea light.

You’re probably right. One of the most powerful responses would be a high priority program to get Europe off Russian gas.  Which should be a much higher priority regardless of the political ties the gas may come with...

No busier than usual, give over with your conspiracy theory speculative nonsense. 

Somewhat unlikely, given that the first working laser was not developed until 1960.

If you’ve previously spent your time making lists to define what is normal for activity in the area, please feel free to share.   

It’s not nonsense to note what is currently in the area.

I’m afraid I’m a bit confused, what sort of conspiracy am I suggesting?  That NATO has some low level surveillance activity going on in the region of a nation that just hijacked an international flight?  Wow, I think I’d better go see my shrink.

We do not buy any gas from Belarus, and the new pipeline is precisely necessary to bypass Belarus (and Poland, another potential nutcase country as judged by their behaviour in the EU).

At least get your facts straight.

I agree that Putin is dangerous, but certainly more rational and hence easier to deal with than the Saudis and the other medieval nutters in the Golf region.

Getting rid of our fossil fuel dependency is clearly essential for environmental and also geopolitical reasons, but until that can be achieved, tying the Russians in with gas deals does make geopolitical sense. It is also not much of a danger. In the current situation, with demand predicted to drop, at least in the foreseeable future, and the US fracking industry as a major new player expanding supply, the threat of nor buying is at least as strong as the threat of not delivering!

CB

They were 15 years ahead of Maiman's first practical laser, then...

I beleive there are former Hong Kong dissidents for example who are wary about travelling where China has "reach" and are advised to avoid.

Its not an area most of us have alot of experience of.But possibly it just might have been sensible to avoid being seen to be in there airspace, the Belarus President is hardly stable after all.Better safe than sorry so to speak.

Oil and gas sales bankroll a huge proportion of russian activities, but Europe just won't address it, if anything they keep on adding to the problem. I'm probably reading to much into it, but I wonder if former East European Merkel doesn't view Russia or Putin in quite the same way as much of the rest of Europe. 

Ok.

Europe is buying Russian gas.

Europe is buying 1.4m barrels of Russian oil per day, which they pay a fee to belarus for it to travel through. (Druzhba pipeline)

Better? 

Just being contrary, but what is the complaint here?  Is it never acceptable to intercept a flight carrying (what a country regards as) a criminal in order to arrest them?  What about a boat in a country's waters?  Or simply a person within a country's territory?

If, say, Osama bin Laden had been over-flying the US would the US have ignored that flight?

It also seems like it was a plan rushed together when an opportunity presented itself.  

The Global Hawk is on its return leg and is close to the border; it's come all the way up from the Med, I hadn't realised they had such a phenomenal range (> 22,000 km according to Google.).  Amazing what a difference it makes leaving the pilot out.

Yes, a lot of confusion indeed.   Odds are it's a bunch of coincidences coming together and gaining some momentum, but I don't think there's evidenced grounds to write it off either.

I have a couple of pieces of specially laminated plywood board that were given to me by a friend.  In between the plywood there is a thick layer of lead - the wood is heavy.  My friend worked for a highly specialist company in the S of England that made large sheets of this to use as shielding for such windowless rooms.

They make  interesting but heavy paperweights.

You are speculating that there is an increase in NATO air traffic on the eastern fringe of the EU, surely the onus is on you to prove so. I've just told you there's nothing out of the ordinary. If anything there's an unusually intense G-120TP flight over Lincolnshire... increasing pilot training for war, perhaps? Has anyone checked the Eurofighter construction line to see if mid-morning Pop Master tea break has been cancelled?

No problem with you discussing the situation otherwise

As I understand it, agreed international law on civil aviation. 

As I understand it, overflight is governed by international treaty that don't allow this sort of thing, probably because if it did go on, it wouldn't be long before civil aviation was severely curtailed.

Not exactly comparable as bin Laden would have been on internationally agreed no fly lists, and so the aircraft would not have had him on and then been allowed in to US airspace on a false pretext prior to military intervention.

Yes, better. Do you also agree with my comment on what the point of the new pipeline is?

Also, what is wrong with buying oil or gas from Russia that would be right if we were buying from Saudi?

CB

I did not say there was "an increase".

I said "It seems like there's quite a few eyes and ears in the sky around them right now."

Can you spot the difference?  

I can prove what I have claimed.  That there were quite a few eyes and ears in the sky there.

That's great.  You could back your statement up - that would be useful context, and nothing I would argue with or take issue with or have any problem with.  You seem confident you know what is "normal" so give us some examples, I would welcome that.

Perhaps it's common to have surveillance craft to on all "friendly" sides of Belarus; I made no claim either way on that, just noted that we do today.  

Yes - the use of 'right now' perhaps suggests there aren't quite a few eyes and ears in the sky around them at other times. 

Again, you suggesting there's 'quite a few' when you have no idea of the base traffic levels would suggest you believe there is an increase. 

Sorry, I don't keep hold of a database of NATO flight plans. Does ADSBexchange have a 'rewind' function? Maybe you could spend the afternoon watching the last 12 months worth of flights. 

It is common. NATO has a huge presence in the Baltic states, both on the ground and in the air. 

Defensive architecture is a interesting subject. For example the new(ish) Arsenal stadium has some nice ornamental canons outside along with a bunch of benches to sit down on and finally the name of the club spelled out in big letters. All of which can effectively slow down or stop most vehicles.

“Quite a few” makes no reference to a baseline, although it is a vague term.  There were more than “a few”.  There weren’t “lots”.    I shouldn’t have used such woolly language.

ADSB’s historic database is offline AFAIK because of the cost of running it.

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/belarus-diversion-echoes-prior-ukrainia...

20 years ago there was hope that Belarus was interested in moving towards a more normal country status and good relations with the EU! I think the Belarus situation is worse now than at any point since independence. It's really sad.

It's taken so long to install it, they could have done something more environmentally friendly in country. Plus it is very out of sight of mind, Russia pushes into the artic for oil and gas, no doubt causing all sorts of damage, but at least Germany can pretend it's being greener.

Buy from neither. Two wrongs don't make a right. 

.In reply to captain paranoia:

1945 is a reference to a mention of RF (quoted below) and obviously that technology did exist then.

"It's no great stretch to think that there might be similar techniques using other forms of rf."

1945 is a reference to a mention of RF (quoted below) and obviously that technology did exist then. 

"It's no great stretch to think that there might be similar techniques using other forms of rf."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Lead! Bloody hell, I thought thin copper would be enough.

I'm trying to decide how thematically similar that device and a laser microphone are - both measure vibration mechanically and modulate the information on to an outbound EM wave, with the energy suppled by an incoming EM wave.  So despite large apparent differences there's a lot of commonality.  Different modulation schemes, and the return from the RF device is R^(-4) where-as the laser device is effectively unattenuated by distance - so a lot more power is needed to illuminate the RF device.

An interesting analogy I'd not considered before.

But I think non-linear techniques could perhaps be used these days to shift the inbound EM radiation out of conventional bands for power delivery, be it to a listening device or biological tissue.   

I still think it's very unlikely to be at work here, but I don't think it's impossible.

PAS68 is the standard for this. When you start looking, you see it in all sorts of places. You also get blast resistant bins, for example, that direct force upwards. There is a short video halfway down this page, along with links to street furniture designed to keep people safe.

https://www.securiscape.co.uk/blast-resistant-bin/

The only problem seems to be that councils ripped out bins, to prevent terrorism, but didnt replace them with more expensive ones. We prevented a potential bad thing, but created a litter issue.

Non-linear optics* type techniques require high field intensities.
At other frequencies or outside of an optical device I think you could detect them from the smell of burning!

*not non-linear electronics like a diode or bug remotely powered by RF

The field is only high at the focus though for a high NA system.

Which is why I said I don’t think the physics is as impossible as you suggested, and is also why I said I “It’s an incredible stretch that there are foreign agents running around with such a device taking pot shots at US diplomats and not being noticed, especially given likely antennae requirements”. 

I think a system based around two, higher frequency beams that intersect - not focus - and beat in the microwave in the target region is more likely, and it gives way more headroom to get out of the likely spectrum analysis counter surveillance windows than non linear techniques.

So, not I think impossible but quite niche and very unlikely.  Of course, scientists have said that before when, it turns out, someone quietly invented something decades before and kept it closed knowledge. 

That starts making it very targeted though which doesnt match the large groups reporting issues unless they went after them one at a time.

I would also assume the embassy would have windows with at least some shielding built in which would make things more complex although I guess in many cases they dont live on site so could be targeted at home which would also mean less chance of countermeasures picking it up.

I don't say impossible physics. I do say scientifically implausible without a possibly Nobel prize worthy discovery of new science or technology.

Non-linear means high field (hence the smell of burning) rather than regime of linear superposition of waves at low fields. 

Getting environmental advice form a country still drilling in the North Sea is a bit bizarre!

CB

You said "Magical rays - undetectable, unknown to physics, unknown to medicine..." - 

I don't think it requires magical or unknown physics.

I understand quite clearly the difference between the regime's of bog-standard superposition and non-linear optics and thought I had been quite clear I was presenting them as two different possibilities on this thread.  I have accidentally cooked something with a non linear optical system once upon a time.   I gave both as examples of how a transition at one wavelength can be excited by a - potentially very - different wavelength - which is why I disagree that this needs "magical rays".

It's low probability, but I can see routes that do not involve something "unknown to physics".

Yup, I agree with all of that - as I said I think it's very improbable, but I disagree with another assessment that it was likely beyond known physics or that it involved undetectable rays.  As you say it could be targeting people at home (or indeed elsewhere).

Would you Adam n Eve it... that RC-135 was spending some time over the Black Sea, presumably keeping an eye on the Crimea, and routed there via the quieter airspace of Central Europe rather than the civilian congested Mediterranean route. Stand down, panic over.

Or one still digging lignite out of open cast mines for its power stations. 

I can't really see how you took an observation on a bunch of surveillance planes and my comment "It's hard to see an appropriate diplomatic solution to this incident, but it's even hard[er] to imagine the consequences of any other restitution being containable, so have the lines just been re-defined once again on what we're prepared to let Putin and his allies achieve?" to be panic, but there you go.  In other words, I said we'll make a fuss, do nothing and those pushing the bounds will get away with it.  Again.

Yes I'm sure they tootled along near more hostile airspace (Belarus - a day after an act of international air piracy, and the Russian dominated part of the Ukraine where not long ago a civilian airliner was shot down) rather than use safer airspace because, even with the signifiant reduction in civilian air travel from the pandemic, it was too busy for the pilots to cope with.  I'm sure they absolutely didn't want to take a peak at several areas on their way down and their way back nor to show their faces as part of the game.

I thought the two US planes orbiting over Lithuania were much more interesting...  

The drone is pretty interesting as well - https://www.radarbox.com/data/mode-s/AE54B6 - some sort of testing/calibration over the French border, quick trip up to Estonia via the Belarus border, then trip around more than half of the Belarus border on its way down to the dodgy side of Ukraine.   

I'll be watching over the next few weeks to see if this was an unusual amount of activity so close to Belarus for surveillance planes or not.  If it was stand out, perhaps it's all coincidence...

But it would be strange if there wasn't some posturing and enhanced monitoring after an event like this I should think.

Or in the high Q low NA resonator of a frequency doubling laser.

Either way non-linear stops working when field is low and implementing high field for non-linear optics phenomena at a distance, shifted into RF or other frequency, and covertly is unknown to physics (I think).

A US embassy bothering ray is not impossible but it is closer to comic book magical rays or Noble prize winning than plausible linear/non-linear EM wave physics or physiology.

I was going to say I think we can take it as a given that the people involved were not inside a resonator cavity; but then I've wondered before if this is an accidental side effect of some counter-surveillance system - with that being a possible common factor across the sites that doesn't invoke an aggressor.  Perhaps instead it's  an unintended interaction of an active system with a passive system... 

Non linear microwave stuff has been researched decades ago in terms of ionospheric physics, and is making something of a comeback in plasma physics.  Plasma as a medium lends itself to non linear effects far more than biological tissue however.  

Then, as well as non linear systems you have the possibility of a linear mixing system and some heterodyning that could perhaps decouple the excitation wavelengths from the bioactive and surveilled ones.

How many other espionage devices were believed to be closer to comic books until they came out?  

Many years ago I met a former Soviet scientist who had worked on a plan to produce city-wide street lighting by interfering two RF beams over the city in a patch across the high altitude sodium layer, exciting it to produce light.  They would then adjust the phase of the transmitted beams so that the location of the resultant fringe pattern moved down through the layer at the speed of light, so that spontaneously emitted photons from the top slice would find themselves travelling in an excited medium, leading to single pass stimulated emission in a highly energy efficient way.  The cycle would then repeat.  This if done would effectively produce low coherence laser light from a wide source coming down over a city, giving quite an energy efficient way of producing lighting.   I don't know how practicable this was, but decades later the basic ideas were being revised for an alternative application of the sodium layer.   

There are some concepts I'm aware of for such a device that seem plausible, and there's way more expertise and engineering out there than I know about, and probably more concepts I don't know about, so I'm not going to be drawn in to confidently writing the possibility off. 

There's some crazy stuff goes on out there.

Agreed.

No military traffic will always tend to use quieter airspace where they can. Any mil traffic coming out of Turkey say, for the UK or Germany will normally head north over Poland. They'll normally only stick to the Med route if they're going to the USA. See ZE707, left Germany and is heading probably for Cyprus, but it went out of it's way east then south. Whereas LH1416 left Germany for Dubrovnik and is following the direct line down the Adriatic. Not a hard and fast rule of course, merely an observation (you like those?) over time. But you carry on belittling the pilots. 

US aircraft are on deployment in Lithuania via NATO on a pretty much permanent basis. Lakenheath F15s are there regularly. The fact two were circling is no more interesting than when the MC130s out of Mildenhall circle over the Fens. 

Not just Belarus, but the entire Russia border pretty much. An interesting watch, I can agree with though.

The posturing with Russia and the daily 'intercepts' of their bombers in international airspace has been going on since the Cold War. It doesn't get reported here obviously, but the aforementioned F15s are also 'intercepted' by Russian fighters at their border on a regular basis too. One relatively minor incident with a small unthreatening country isn't really going to kick up that much fuss from a military viewpoint. 

I wasn't belittling the pilots, rather the opposite in fact, but I think we've established that we're not communicating very well with each other... 

They were SIGINT planes rather than combat stuff.  I was going to say such stuff doesn't tend to fly loops around the UK on a regular basis, but Cobham have just started intensively flying 4 Falcons out of Teeside near us on an MOD contract, and they're getting visitors from all sorts of interesting aircraft when they're on station, as well as leaving lots of visible racetracks in the sky. 

It's come up a few times in UKC discussions, and makes the news a couple of times a year.

Good point. My mobile is better than anything James Bond had when I was a kid. 

I think you have completely misread wintertree's meaning in that paragraph...

Cobham/FRA have provided radar targets for a very long time; note their registrations: G-FRAx or somesuch. They used to operate from Bournemouth.

You could have joined me at the demonstrations against these!

IMO the best course would have been to leave the nuclear power stations running until regenerative energy source would suffice, and instead close down all the coal powered ones, but politics is, as everywhere, driven by emotion not reason.

Gas powered power stations would still probably unavoidable for the moment, because they can be cranked up so quickly.

The key argument against keeping nuclear plants running is the waste, but that is naive. We have already accumulated so much waste that we need a biggish long term storage facility anyway. If we ever decide on where to put it (lime, salt domes, granite), doubling its size should be trivial.

Also, from a geopolitical POV I would rather keep the access to Russian gas open as one of many options, rather than depend on fracking gas controlled by Trump. Depending on a supplier that does not need to sell as badly as the Russians really leaves you open to blackmail.

That danger has receded with Biden, but that was in no way sure, and let's see what happens in 2024!

CB

I was being obtuse. 

Russian fighters intercepting NATO aircraft gets discussed on here a couple of times a year? Are you sure?

I said: it's come up a few times in UKC discussions, and makes the news a couple of times a year.

I am certain I wrote that very clearly and equally certain that you have significantly misread it.  As I apparently have to spell everything out...

• “... a few times in UKC discussions” - that’s over perhaps 15 years, once since covid that I recall
• ”and makes the news a couple of times a year”

Edit: Some of the times it's come up on UKC; I'm sure I recall a couple more threads, but perhaps they were in The Pub or I'm not very good with the search function

• 2020 - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/raf_low_flying_exercises_why-71...
• 2016 - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/russian_bombers_fly_towards_our...
• 2007 - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/doh_us_b52_nuke_cock-up-260591?...
• 2007 - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/oh_what_a_lovely_war-258411

Double Edit:  I see our posts are playing out to the same play book as in 2020.  Mutual assured poster destruction I tell you.

I'm not convinced that a modern advanced wealthy nation in Europe should be planning or require any level of cooperation with Biden, trump or Putin to power its land. Germany has the money, the tech and the internal expertise to solve its own energy demands, whilst also ticking moral, ethical and environmental boxes, IF it wishes to. 

Ps. The same applies to most countries in Europe. 

Edit. I'd add China to that list too. 

Have a like for that observation 🙃

It adds interest walking round any city centre to spot the VSDs and other (very expensive) bollards, bins and benches.

Uh-huh...

It would be amazing if after an event like this NATO didn't put in a few more assets near Belarus until things cool down.

Already happening with the focus on the arctic. The significant advantage Russia has is being countered with operating bases that face several directions to cover other approaches, including from across Belarus.

I agree!

CB

One of my customer visit is  to Lakenheath I get to drive to and visit a hangar with F15's etc. Its pretty awesome when you are driving across the runway and  there is a break between flight take offs. You then have to drive across the runway pretty quickly. The noise is phenomenal and you see true top gun pilots.

Yes my old man works on Mildenhall as a civilian for the MoD. Back in the good old days we used to be able to get signed on there and Lakenheath, they're intriguing places! Playing night golf on the Lakenheath course as your flashing ball rolls away under the thunder of the afterburner. Then going and having a triple whopper meal in Burger King for about £3.50, and picking up some Lucky Charms cereal for £1 a box when everyone else has to buy it from Selfridges for a fiver. Used to be a nice little earner that back in uni I've spent many an evening in years gone by in the Bird in Hand chatting to the base pilots and the occasional visiting crew, last ones were with a P3 based in Alaska. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

There's an even more interesting thing than "The Thing" if you believe Peter Wright in "Spycatcher" which was a dish shaped sculpture. A microwave beam could pass through the window and reflect back off the sculpture to a receiver, due to the thin dish shape vibrations due to sound would affect the reflectivity and it was possible to determine people speaking on that side of the room. The beam was only switched on at certain times so as not to be detected and the sculpture was completely passive so unlike "The Thing" there was no hidden detail.

Anyway back to the Rivet Joint flights etc, that's political posturing, biceps flexing