Let&#146;s play

last updated 8 January 2015

Vladivostok, Russia

Longtime rivals Russia and China conducted their first bilateral war games this week, deploying a total of 10,000 troops for land, sea, and air exercises. The two countries said they were simulating a peacekeeping mission in aid of a state where terrorists or separatists had struck. But Russia included strategic bombers in its contingent, something not generally part of a peacekeeping force. Some analysts said this suggested the exercise was aimed at countering increasing U.S. influence in Central Asia. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. would keep an eye on the exercises. “We would hope,” he said, “that anything that they do is not something that would be disruptive to the current atmosphere in the region.”