Were any of the ‘targets’ actually worth as much as the $1.5 million cruise missiles used to attack them?
A Russian fighter might be in the $10 million range to replace, plus the hardened hangar, equipment, etc.
But, that’s not really the point. The point is that Syria is a signer of the international chem weapons ban (created for damn good reasons), and also with Russian “assistance” agreed to get rid of its chem weapons in 2013, IIRC. Plus we’d just indicated we’d leave Assad in power, and 2 days later his response is yet another chem weapons attack. This just simply could not go unanswered any longer, or every despot in the world would arm up with chem weapons.