[GOPJ]

One likely scenario. Our warships launch Tomahawks at Syrian targets. Russian warships closer to Syria launch interceptor missiles to try to shoot them down. Our warships see these Russian missile launches and think they are being attacked. They launch missiles at the Russian warships. The Russian warships see the inbound missiles and launch their missiles at the American warships. World War Three ensues.

Didn't we knock down an Iranian passenger jet in similar circumstances some years back?

[Travis McGee]

Yep, the USN cruiser Vincennes misidentified an Iranian Airbus with like 300 pax on board as an Iranian F-14, and blew it out of the sky.

So imagine how hard it is to correctly identify what type of missile a Russian warship might be firing, and the compressed decision times.

[csvset]

Iran Air Flight 655