Sea, air and land updates (Dione Hodgson, Ashleigh Sharp, Lachlan Wilson, ASPI The Strategist)

With Rim of the Pacific 2016 (Exercise RIMPAC) in full swing, Russia has stationed a spy shipoff the coast of Hawaii to monitor proceedings. According to a US Pacific Fleet spokesman, the Russian Navy Balzam-class auxiliary general intelligence ship arrived ‘recently’, operating outside US territorial waters but within the 200-nautical-mile EEZ. Russia hasn’t been invited to the biennial exercise since 2012, due to heightened tension with the West over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Center for Research on Globalization has taken a look at this omission, asking whether RIMPAC’s being used to co-opt China into isolating Russia.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/sea-air-land-updates/