Blood thirsty democrats cite Kosovo as precedent.
At that time, Serbia was two bit army with no Russian/Chicom/Iranian support.
Yet managed to shoot down a Nighthawk and undisclosed number of other aircraft.
Without integrated air defense, using thermal and tv guidance instead of suppressed radars.
Over Serbia's skies, 4 U.S. jets were not able to shoot down in dogfight one Serbian Mig flying without operational on-board RADAR.
Even more interesting is what USAF and allies accomplished in 78 days of turkey shooting: destroyed 14 (fourteen) tanks and murdered thousands of civilians, causing $70B of damage to civilian infrastructure.
Inflatable decoys, particleboard "aircraft", "tanks" made of scrap, microwave ovens, "roads" made of black garbage bags were the targets.
All of these and more will be in Syria. Plus, S300 and other toys.
No wonder Brits chickened out.
IIRC, I think continuous wave radar (CW) can defeat stealth to the point where you could light them up like it was day. I remember reading about that in the 1990’s. Come to think of it, CW radar was used as far back as the 1930’s and 1940’s, most notably in the British “Chain Home” system. Attacking Syria is a lose/lose proposition, I would hate to be the chump(s) who would have to fly an F-15 or worse, a B-52 over Damascus, it would make flying over Hanoi look like a picnic. I have an old (1981) “Elementary Electronics” magazine article somewhere about how the F-15’s avionics measure up on the battlefield and it had a writeup on how tough the Syrian defenses were in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The SA-6 and especially the SA-8’s were very deadly. I’m sure they are still there today along with newer stuff of course. If the Syrians did anything to us, I’d say, “yeah, sure, let’s go get them,” but they haven’t done a thing to us and in a way with Assad, he’s one of the few keeping a lid, or trying to, the radical Islamists. I think this is a way to distract from Bengazi, the economy, Obummercare, etc.