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Starne, on Apr 14 2018 - 11:44, said:
Of course they are. They know there's no possible scenario in which military escalation turns out well for them.
At minimum, fighting a doom-to-fail expeditionary war against the US (...and the UK, France, and quite possibly the Saudis and who knows who else...) in Syria would be politically devastating for Putin. Not only would it completely destroy the 'Russia Stronk! Putin Stronk! Russia Stronk Because Putin!' narrative and image he's constructed, it would complete undo all of his gains in Syria both in terms of his own goals (Notably, Russia would lose the naval base at Tartus forever), and his efforts to court the Iranians (Assad would definitely be removed, and Iran's project to create a direct land route to Lebanon would be toast). Never mind that there's pretty much no way that a war between Russia and the west over Syria would stay in Syria. If the UK and France were belligerents, would they really allow Russian naval movements on their doorstep? How would they enforce that without attacking Russian warships? Would the Turks close the Bosphorus to Russian shipping entirely? Plus, even a low-intensity, relatively contained "Not-War" (Because I'm 90% sure that both sides would insist they weren't actually at war) would permanently secure economic and political sanctions on Russia, and bring who knows what else in terms of further measures. So even the best-case scenario would directly imperil the future of Putin's regime.
At worst, turning a shooting dispute over Syria into a shooting war in Europe would be an even worse no-win scenario for Putin. He knows that the Russia military doesn't stand a chance in a conventional confrontation with the West. So his only choices would be immediate nuclear escalation (I actually think this is pretty unlikely. The Kremlin is paranoid that the west secretly has some kind of effective strategic missile defense system, thus rendering Russia's aging and poorly maintained nuclear arsenal completely useless), or roll over and accept defeat, most likely fleeing to China, because he's the wealthiest man in the world and there's no way he could stomach or risk living as some kind of on-the-run fugitive in Russia just to play guerilla leader. Remember that he doesn't care about Russia except as a means of enriching himself and a base of power. He almost certainly wouldn't go down fighting just to preserve Russia's national honor or whatever.
Which is kind of the point of this whole charade. Syria, Ukraine, they're all just political ploys for Putin to use his control over the Russian state to expand his personal wealth and power. He won't do anything to meaningfully imperil that wealth and power. Putin isn't a conventional head of state, he's a mob boss that also happens to have control over a country.
I very much suspected that talk of shooting down the missiles and their launch platforms was so much bluster.
While it's not being discussed in the media... I doubt the total lack of Russian defensive action or response here has gone unnoticed in various capitals.
E: much tough talk about how the strikes "will be" or "could be" countered by "Russian strength" is about the "best" case for Putin. Even if Russian forces in Syria had managed to shoot down a few cruise missiles, what then? Does Russia continue to expend the limited supply of its most advanced air defense assets against more waves of US/UK/France missiles?
Edited by KilljoyCutter, Apr 14 2018 - 23:04.
