STATESIDE

of weaponry, including missiles ominously named ‘Hellfire’ and 500lb bombs. The MQ-9 can stay aloft for 30 hours when conducting purely intelligence missions, which drops to 23 hours if it is carrying a full weapons load. The Reaper has a range of 1,150 miles and an operational altitude of 50,000ft.

This “Reaper” drone is clearly capable of both military intelligence and operational missions. The US has been deploying them for 15 years in various roles. In response to Tuesday’s incident, US officials said the incident was “part of a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots during encounters with American and allied aircraft in international airspace”.

The officials warned that “provocations of this type could lead to miscalculations and unintended escalation” between Russia and the West.

The US and its allies are edging ever closer to a situation where an incident like Tuesday’s one becomes a justification for escalation if not declared war. Such a situation might conjure memories of the Korean War that was fought threequarters of a century ago.

The Korean War of 1950-53 was sparked when North Korea pushed across its 38th parallel boundary with South Korea and tried to conquer the south. It is officially called the Korean “conflict”, since there was never a formal declaration of war by the UN forces led by the US against North Korea and its Russian and Chinese patrons. (The United Nations, under whose aegis the war was fought by the Americans and their allies, is proscribed by its charter from declaring war. Hence the use of “conflict”).

Whether you call it a war or not, 36,000 American troops died and 2.5 million civilians were killed.

The result of the Korean War was the present stalemate, after North Korean, Russian and Chinese forces were finally pushed back to the pre-invasion border. Sound familiar?