On August 11, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced that they had tracked three Russian surveillance aircraft entering and operating within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the past three days. The Russians stayed within international air space, and NORAD announced in their press release that they did not consider the Russians' actions threatening or provocative, though they did deploy F-22s to identify conduct surveillance of the Russian aircraft.

F-22s

Russian surveillance aircraft have entered the Alaskan ADIZ before. NORAD identified Russian aircraft in our airspace in both January and March 2021 . Russian military aircraft were tracked14 times in 2020. Since 2020, Russian activity near Alaska has been higher than at any point since the Cold War.

So, should we all start panicking because the Russians are coming?

No, but the situation merits our attention. Even though the Cold War ended 30 years ago, many Americans have never really trusted Russia. It would be foolish in the extreme to assume that Russians are any different. We monitor areas worldwide. Russia is another large country with an advanced military. It's not unreasonable to assume that they like to know what's going on around the world, as well.