Plan B Forum

It might get nastier but It am not scared, how about you?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/worl ... syria.html

WASHINGTON — Long-running tensions between the United States and Russia erupted publicly on Monday as Moscow condemned the American military’s downing of a Syrian warplane and threatened to target aircraft flown by the United States and its allies west of the Euphrates.
The Russians also said they had suspended their use of a hotline that the American and Russian militaries used to avoid collisions of their aircraft in Syrian airspace.
The episode was the first time the United States downed a Syrian plane since the civil war began there in 2011 and came after the SU-22 jet dropped bombs on Sunday near American-backed fighters combating the Islamic State. It followed another major American military action against the Syrian government: a cruise missile strike to punish a nerve gas attack that killed civilians in April.
The latest escalation comes as competing forces converge on ungoverned swaths of Syria amid the country’s six-year civil war. Syrian forces and Iranian-backed militias that support them are extending their reach east closer to American-backed fighters, including forces that the Pentagon hopes will pursue the militants into the Euphrates River valley after they take the Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa. The collision of the disparate forces has, in effect, created a war within a war.

I'd feel better if I knew which side we are on.

Big RR wrote:I'd feel better if I knew which side we are on.

O ye of little faith? ‎Matthew 8:26

We are on the side of "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

Is it just me, or does it appear that our village idiot would get some sort of perverse satisfaction from seeing the U.S. being handed its ass in a military confrontation with Russia?

Big RR wrote:I'd feel better if I knew which side we are on.

I suspect it won’t be the Russian if they start shooting down our planes. But in this case I am not worried; naval and air power is where we are the strongest as compared to the Russians. It is not like we would be fighting them on the ground in the artic where they would have the home advantage. If we could not sweep them from the sky without too much trouble in Iraq it would be time to really start worrying.

It actually might be a good thing in the end if this should come to a fight. The US should win and that should give Putin pause to be a lot more cautious and buy the US more time. Putin is very intelligent he is not going to fight unless he is sure of victory, except for a test case like Iraq. But, time won’t change things. In a generation the US culture will be no stronger than it is now and the country will more likely be more divided.

Sooner or later there will be a fight somewhere. Putin wants to make Russia great again and the US is in his way. What would you do if you were Putin, wouldn’t you try to remove the obstacle?

to put it in perspective: The population of Russia is less than 1/2 of ours, the life expectancy is 18 years less than ours and their gdp is less than 1/10 of ours.

They were never as powerful as the paranoid right claimed during the cold war and not even a miracle will make them a superpower except in their, and your, imaginations. We can isolate them economically until they wither. Brazil, Italy and India have larger economies.


yrs,
rubato

Brazil, Italy and India have larger economies.


yrs,
rubato

They don't have ICBM's.

Russia does.

Actually, India does, too.

dales wrote:

Brazil, Italy and India have larger economies.


yrs,
rubato

They don't have ICBM's.

Russia does.

Having nuclear weapons gives some powers but far from all. Israel, the UK, France, Pakistan, India all have nuclear weapons and none of them are superpowers.


yrs,
rubato

So what is a superpower? 20 years and we still have not defeated Afghanistan. We did manage to conquer Grenada.

snailgate

Travel thirty miles out -- in any direction -- from a major Russian city and you'll most likely find near abject poverty.

The only thing that makes Russia a "super power" is The Bomb. All it takes is one and it's not worth any chest thumping on our part. I'll take a Cold War any day over the alternative.

I'll take a Cold War any day over the alternative.

rubato wrote:to put it in perspective: The population of Russia is less than 1/2 of ours, the life expectancy is 18 years less than ours and their gdp is less than 1/10 of ours.

They were never as powerful as the paranoid right claimed during the cold war and not even a miracle will make them a superpower except in their, and your, imaginations. We can isolate them economically until they wither. Brazil, Italy and India have larger economies.


yrs,
rubato

Wishful thinking is dangerous. It is better to see an enemy as a giant rather than a midget. If you see a giant you may waste resources preparing for the fight, but if you see a midget you are apt to waste lives. (NCO Academy, guest speaker)

I made the correction: It was the NCO Academy not NCO Leadership School. What can I say, it was a long time ago and I am getting old.

Wasting resources preparing for a threat which does not exist makes you weaker and less able to cope with real problems; like providing Health Care and Education.


yrs,
rubato