Canada's boutique military: 'Should we not be able to defend ourselves?'

The Alaskan Air Identification Zone extends 150 miles from U.S. territorial airspace and into Canada’s airspace in the North. It begins where sovereign airspace ends but is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of security. On two consecutive days in February, two Russian Tupolev bombers accompanied by two Sukhoi Su-35 fighters flew into the zone. On both days, Feb. 18 and Feb. 19, they were intercepted by F-35 fi