How many times do you think it’ll take to poke the Bear before the Bear pokes back?
I'm pretty sure this was orchestrated in advance by Putin and Trump. I've sensed for awhile a certain degree of coordination. I even think the Russian Troll stories were real, but the "hacking" stuff was nonsense and the "fake news" stories were just Russian trolls posting articles on Free Republic that we all knew were real. Trump vs. Russia narrative aids Trump.
Even if I am wrong on Russian-US coordination, Russia will still not fire a missile at US forces under any circumstances. Syria is not worth a nuclear war.
Let’s find out.
OTOH, how many times does the Bear have to poke us before we poke back? It seems to me the Bear has been poking us, Oh I don’t know .. two or three times a year for eight years? ... and now we poked back ... new game.
The last thing Russia wants to do is poke the Eagle.
They know nukes are assured mutual destruction.
They can't go toe to toe with conventional.
They have 13 SSBN's and can only do 5 tours total,for 13 boats, in a year.
Because of that, their sailors aren't able to adequately man their ships.
About half their entire naval fleet sits in port at any one time. We know where all their subs are.
They can't afford to maintain their fleet or do tours. Their recon is limited.
They have one aircraft carrier
One battle cruiser
3 cruisers
15 destroyers
6 frigates
81 corvettes
13 ballistic missile subs
7 cruise missile subs
41 attack subs
168 vessels that project power.
HALF are in port
The rest are easy access for subs or aircraft or surface ships.
This isn't 1940 Pearl Harbor. Planes don't even need to get that close to targets.
TWO ships just launched 59 Tomahawks.
A coordinated effort could launch missiles and torpedoes that would impact every ship and sub within seconds of each other.
A first strike could have Russias navy unable to do anything.
You post this crap like we should be terrified of Russia.
They have as much or more reason to fear us.
In the end, NEITHER country wants a confrontation.