Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[Smitty-48]

Perhaps if the Russians have an agreement with Trump to allow some of their dog and pony show antics in other theatres this might work for both of them.

Well it doesn't work with the Balance of Terror, because there's no formal and overt agreement, thus it is all grey area, and when you create a grey area in around 3500 thermonuclear warheads on hair trigger alert, again, dictionary definition of playing with nuclear fire.

[DBTrek]

Thank you Eeyore.

[Smitty-48]

Case in point, this is exactly how the Cuban Missile Crisis came about, in the grey area, political tit for tat, "unspoken agreement", the Americans put missiles in Turkey for poltical reasons, to reassure the Turks that NATO was serious about defending Turkey to the hilt, but without any real operational purpose for those already obselete MRBM's, and this is exactly how the Soviets interpreted it, which is why the Soviets believed that they could respond, political tit for tat, by deploying missiles in Cuba, to reaasure the Cubans that the Soviets were serious about defending Cuba to the hilt, without having any real operational purpose for those missiles neither, not actually intending those missiles as a first strike weapon anymore than America intended its missiles in Turkey as first strike weapon... except, that's not how the Americans reacted, to the Soviets shock and surprise, the Americans had not actually gotten the memo, because of course there was no memo in an "unspoken agreement", and hence all heck broke loose right to the brink of a nuclear war.

[Smitty-48]

Thank you Eeyore.

It's more an issue of "how does it work?". So, the Russo-Syrian proxies have used WMD, twice now, which America had and has declared to be a "Red Line", as in; "absolutely do not cross, on pain of war", the first time America reasserted it to be a "Red Line", but then did nothing about it, now in the second case, America has once again reasserted "Red Line", but has responded with a blatantly political and intentionally irrelevant dog and pony show.

Thus, Obama has executed phase one of destroying the credibility of America's Red Lines in the sand, and now Trump has come in and doubled down with phase two, on this trajectory, there will be no credible Red Lines which America could draw in the sand, which a nuclear armed adversary would be sure to be real, hence, creating the grey area which opens the path wide to escalatory spiral by misappreshension, miscalculation and/or mistake.

[Speaker to Animals]

Like I said before: get your potassium iodide and vacuum-sealed buckets of oats and rice.

[K@th]

Warning shots aren't intended to do any physical harm.

[Speaker to Animals]

100 million dollars would have been a nice sum to hire more ICE agents to round up the Mexican illegals, especially those affiliated with criminal gangs who continue to murder our citizens. Thanks Donald. Maybe we can try winning next time.

[Smitty-48]

Warning shots aren't intended to do any physical harm.

Warning shots none the less must be credible, if the adversary believes the warning shot to be a bluff, and then calls your bluff, you have to take the shot, and with nuclear armed adversaries in the Balance of Terror, that is the very defeinition of escalatory spiral by missaprehension, miscalculation and/or mistake.

Warning shots by the way, are the last line before all out war, so while they may not do harm in of themselves, a warning shot is the definition of brink of war by its very nature, so better make damn sure you're not just goofing around for domestic partisan political comsumption, if you're going to take things there.

[C-Mag]

Props to Nuke Dog, he was all over this. Called it ahead of time.

Personally I blame Smitty, he is gone for 6 weeks +/- returns at 1400 EST and within 5 hours we are launching Cruise Missles

[K@th]

Warning shots aren't intended to do any physical harm.

Warning shots none the less must be credible, if the adversary beleives the warning shot to be a bluff, and then calls your bluff, you have to take the shot, and with nuclear armed adversaries in the Balance of Terror, that is the very defeinition of escalatory spiral by missaprehension, miscalculation and/or mistake.

I don't think trump was bluffing. I agree that he definitely gains political points from this; plus it distracts for all the chaos that is his WH. I think, though, both things can be true at the same time.