Territorial

Well that didn’t take long.

The United States has conducted Freedom of Navigation exercises in the Black Sea for more than 30 years. On the one hand, it’s a bit provocative to intentionally go into the area behind someone’s land just to show that you can do it. Then again, Russia has been provocative itself in similar ways, lately.  Most of the time, there’s some yelling across diplomatic channels when these things happen. Sometimes - although it has been a while - there is more than that, such as the “bumping incident” from February 1988. This week, it appears to starting up again, as Canada says its ships were “buzzed” by Russian planes. Earlier this year, a United States ship was given a similar welcome.

Meanwhile, in a different spat over territorial limits, the Chinese government has - albeit more politely - asked that the United States stop with the spy planes. After the 2001 incident, it’s an understandable if not exactly a reasonable response: The planes are over international waters where most nations don't assert a claim - and if they do, the United States will gladly show them the niceties of maritime law. The Soviets used to do reconnaissance against the U.S. using converted bombers, without significant objections.

Both of these, though, are long-standing objections to how the United States does what it wants to do. They involve standard military operations in a specified and controlled regime with definite goals. This can be contrasted with the other big foreign policy news of the day. President Obama is proposing a re-entry into the Middle East, continuing a pattern of foreign intervention that he was largely elected to avoid, and with some cavalier attitudes toward the Congress’ role in waging war that might be problematic in the longer term. 

Which is to say, there are a number of ways it could go wrong. Disgust with the President acting too much like his predecessors could lead to an election where none of the proposed candidates is good enough. If enough people see the President as chipping away at checks and balances there might be a related push to reaffirm them in much the way the Confederacy tried. Or this could simply escalate into a Big American Satan takes on Defenders of Holy Islam situation that ends with decisive-but-probably not-world-ending nuclear exchange.That is particularly when compared to the possible outcomes from either the China or Russia/Ukraine situations, neither of which really appear to have path that leads to a Peak Crisis.