The White House stressed Thursday that it does not view increasing military conflicts with Russia as a new Cold War, despite a new provocation involving Russian aircraft buzzing a U.S. ship.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest downplayed the incident by saying nothing serious escalated because both militaries were operating in international space.
Unlike “incursions on the sovereignty of other countries,” such as Turkey and some Baltic States that the United States condemned, “this was a little bit different than that,” Earnest said on Thursday. The incident in this case involved Russian planes that flew close to the USS Ronald Reagan while it engaged in a joint exercise with South Korea in the Sea of Japan on Tuesday.
“This was in international waters and international air space,” Earnest said. It “did not result in a significant confrontation” because both militaries mostly conformed to international norms for such situations.
“This was not a particularly threatening encounter,” Earnest continued. “Again, it was in international waters and once the U.S. military aircraft were launched, the Russia military aircraft was escorted away.”
Earnest said that although the U.S. has significant differences with what Russia is doing militarily in Syria and Ukraine, the jet buzzing incident “doesn’t reflect any change in the relationship between our two countries.”
