The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71), right, approaches the Lewis and Clark-class fleet replenishment oiler USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) for a replenishment-at-sea in the Mediterranean Sea, Oct. 6, 2018. Ross, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is on its seventh patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests Europe and Africa. US Navy photo.
THE PENTAGON – U.S. and NATO ships are focused on conducting freedom of navigation operations in Europe to push back against a Russia that is increasingly harassing commercial shipping and introducing new anti-access weapons into the theater, according to the head of U.S. naval forces in Europe. Read More
With Vladimir Putin in office for another six years, international security experts agree relations between the United States and Russia could sink even lower than they are now and that the danger of conflict between the nuclear giants is greater than it was in the darkest days of the Cold War. 
