For decades the Russians have been a staunch ally of Syria in much the same way as the US has backed Israel! This has not changed much at all. It would be wise for the United States to take to heart How seriously Vladimir Putin values Syria as an ally! There are both US and Russian warships currently on patrol in the Red Sea and one miscalculation could result in a scenario like 1973 when both Washington and Moscow put their military forces on high alert! Putin is evil and has 8800 nukes and 1800 are operational!
Not to mention anyone who rides a horse in jeans with no shirt on or who lies about how many fish he catches doesn't seem like the kind of guy I want to piss off considering the arsenal he has at his disposal.
I think he is a bully and will fold if hit in the nose. I think we hit Syria with aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. Go for Assad and his leaders. No boots on the ground no real interference in the civil war. The ME is a cauldron and will be for many years. Let them figure it out and God separate the dead. We should just make sure they keep it in their own territory and also leave Israel alone.
There are about 30 US and French ships in the area and 2 Russian ones. The rest of the Russian Navy is trapped behind the Turkish straits which will be quickly mined if Russia were foolish enough to attack a NATO country. They have no aircraft carriers and their air bases are far, far away. Russia still wants respect like a Superpower but they are not anymore and nobody knows this better than they do. They will not start WWIII over Syria any more than we would over Israel. The main reason they have a destroyer in the Mediterranean is to inhibit us from declaring a blockade of Syria to stop Russian, Iranian, and Chinese arms from getting through. It makes little sense for us to take out Syrian assets if we allow them to be replaced. Let's take 1973 as an example. Yes, the US and the Soviets went on high alert and began supplying our allies immediately after the Yom Kippur War began. Essentially the US was able to massively reinforce Israel and the Soviets were unable to match it. Even better, the quality and lethality of US arms was proven to be far superior to Soviet arms. When the Israelis crossed the Suez Canal and began the encirclement of the Egyptian army, the Soviets began calling for peace. The inferiority of Russian arms and the weakness of the Soviet navy in the face of the US navy was clear to everyone. Egypt soon changed sides, began re-equipping with US arms, and training annually with US forces in the Sinai. Soon there was a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, then Jordan and Israel, and with the US equipping all sides we have been able to control the situation and no subsequent wars have happened. One of the reasons that the Egyptian army deposed Morsi and the Brotherhood was because Morsi was attempting to destabilize the situation with Israel and Gaza. The Egyptian army has lost in a big way to the Israelis four times and they want no part of another war. The Syrians cannot threaten Israel alone. Israel bombed their nuclear reactor to rubble a few years ago and the Syrians couldn't do a damn thing about it. Neither could Russia. The biggest asset that Putin still has is a veto in the UN Security Council. There are plenty of good reasons not to engage in another general war in the middle east, but fear of Russian nuclear retaliation is not too high on the list. Russia will lose a conventional war with NATO. Russia will lose a nuclear war with NATO. They are not going to use nuclear weapons on us over Syria under any circumstances.
I agree, but Putin has been pretty public with his view that Obama is weak. While they cannot face us militarily, they can make it impossible for us to handle things diplomatically.
What else can he do? His show of "strength" has been mostly about clamping down on democracy in his own country. Russia is facing huge domestic problems, both politically and economically. One is Russia's dependence on oil and gas sales to bolster its economy. They literally cannot afford to go to war with their biggest customers in Western Europe. In fact, war anywhere hurts global oil sales and threatens russia's fragile economy. Any slowdown in global demand or change in the global energy landscape directly affects Russia’s check book. Another is weak institutions. Government inefficiency is rampant. While Russia is the sixth largest economy worldwide in GDP, corruption levels are higher than in countries such as Togo or Uganda, according to Transparency International. Instability in Georgia and Chechnia remains a huge issue. Environmental problems are overwhelming and little has been done to address it. The worst problem is social cohesion. Despite the loss of the former Soviet Republics, there are still a lot of very different people that you can call Russians. Professionals seeking to leave Russia is over 50% in some fields. The population is dropping. They have low ability to attract foreign talent or foreign money. There has been a rise in popular discontent. Putin is acutely aware that the Soviet Army refused to fire on its own citizens during the 1990 revolution. He can only suppress them so much. "An ineffective economy, a semi-Soviet social sphere, a weak democracy, negative demographic trends and an unstable Caucasus. These are very big problems even for a state like Russia," former President Medevdev wrote in his official blog. All things considered, Putin is far weaker than Obama. It the reason he postures so much.
Syria is a lose-lose proposition for this administration. Stay out of it and the president is vilified by opponents as weak and indecisive (he already has heen). Take strong military action and he's a warmongering loose cannon who ignored the UN and is attacking a sovereign nation illegally and can't master international diplomacy. No matter what action he undertakes, staunch opponents of the president will accuse him of taking the wrong one. This is not new or exclusive to this president, it has always been this way.
You probably won't find anyone that hates barry more than I do and I think doing anything other than staying out of it is a bad move. Why should he care if people call him weak? They already do. Just my opinion but getting involved here can only end badly.
Obama met with Putin today to discuss this situation. WikiLeaks got the audio and released it (about 20s in, after the mic feedback):
Just saying . . . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...solution-got-83-cent-defense-lobby-money.html Why don't some of you war-mongers put away your keyboard and head down to your local recruiting office! If you are too old, send your children.
