Frame grab shows Russian fighter-bomber dropping bomb over Syria. The skies over Syria are dangerously crowded these days with the US, Russia, and the Assad regime all bombing various actors on vaguely opposite sides of the country's multidimensional conflict. In both Iraq and Syria, the reality of overlapping aerial operations among countries with little geopolitical fondness toward one another has already led to claims that British aircraft have been authorized to engage Russian aircraft over Iraq if threatened. The British government denied these reports, but they still underscore the possibility of confrontation between allied and Russian military aircraft. Several presidential...