RUSSIA AND TURKEY ARE ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF SYRIA'S INCREASINGLY HEATED PROXY WAR. SOMETHING LIKE THIS MAY HAVE BEEN INEVITABLE.

There was every reason to expect that Russia's airspace violations would continue, in part because Russia had been doing the same for months against another set of NATO allies: the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in northeastern Europe. Those Russian flights began shortly after Russia covertly invaded eastern Ukraine, which prompted Western sanctions against Russia.

When you ask Russia experts why Moscow would send its warplanes buzzing NATO airspace in Europe, they'll often point out that Russia's military is much weaker than America's and NATO's — and Moscow knows it. And indeed this military imbalance is something you hear Russian defense officials bring up constantly; this fact of their relative weakness is world-shaping for them.

So one way Russia has dealt with its relative weakness is by being more provocative, by demonstrating its willingness to raise the stakes and toe ever closer up to the line of outright conflict. The intended message of such flights isn't that Russia will deliberately start a war with the West — it won't — but rather that it is more willing to take on risk, so if the West doesn't want the headache it should just back down.