Fair enough, so are you thinking it's Turkish -29s or another aircraft altogether?
Fair enough, so are you thinking it's Turkish -29s or another aircraft altogether?
Seems that the initial reports were incorrect: while it was a Syrian -29 that spiked the -16s, the aircraft that busted the border were a Russian SU-30 and SU-24.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_123392.htm
When it comes to 'incidents like this or other 'breaking news' it often takes at least a day and sometimes more to get a better picture of what is going on.
Putin doesn't want any western presence in Syria and he will continue to press the issue with encounters like these. I may be full of shit, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians let loose a BVR shot counting on us not doing a damn thing about it except taking are marbles and going home.
I hope that you are right, but I don't think it is that far fetched. Work the scenario. What would our acceptable options be, economic sanctions, a tsk tsk from the UN?Ummm yeah, not going to happen.
I hope that you are right, but I don't think it is that far fetched. Work the scenario. What would our acceptable options be, economic sanctions, a tsk tsk from the UN?
Putin wants to test our policy.
Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, predicting all would have been leaps of faith. Putin is a Soviet thru and thru. He has stated on multiple occasions that there needs to be a check to American dominance since the end of the cold war and a resurgence of the Soviet Union is the answer. Those were countries, this would be a warplane, yes an American warplane, but he's seen no real consequences for his previous actions and I think that he will see how far he can go before he gets a wrist slap.You are taking quite a few leaps of faith, that they would shoot in the first place and then we would do thing about it.
What policy? A war takes two (or more) to play, and we don't want to play.By shooting at us? That isn't testing policy, that is trying to start a war. Get a grip guys.
Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, predicting all would have been leaps of faith. Putin is a Soviet thru and thru. He has stated on multiple occasions that there needs to be a check to American dominance since the end of the cold war and a resurgence of the Soviet Union is the answer. Those were countries, this would be a warplane, yes an American warplane, but he's seen no real consequences for his previous actions and I think that he will see how far he can go before he gets a wrist slap.