US military aircraft are routinely intercepted by Russian and Chinese fighters in international airspace, and that can be a jarring experience, especially if the encounter is "unsafe."
Intercepts that the US and NATO characterize as "unsafe and unprofessional" are not the norm, but are a sizable portion of all these aerial encounters. "I see it a lot," US Navy Capt. Erin Osborne, Wing Ten commodore, told Insider.