Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[kybkh]

Putin is astute enough to recognize that. Given that we alerted the RU in advance to avoid casualties that shows quite a bit of cooperation between our armies so I don't for a second buy this to be a real escalation of any sort.

You're losing sight of how escalations actually occur, escalations are generally not intentional and orderly affairs, escalation occurs, when there is a grey area, the path to escalation is through the paradigm of misapprension, miscalculation and or mistake, using the military as a prop for a political stunt, Post Cold War Monica Lewinski drill straight out of the 90's, if applied to a Cold War dynamic, is inherently dangerous, because its projecting the unserious and silly partisan nonsense dynamic of the Post Cold War paradigm into the nuclear armed confrontation of the Cold War.

To wit, the United States didn't pull these sorts of frivolous stunts vis a vis the Soviets, in the Cold War, this is a product of the Post Cold War era when the Bill Clinton's of the world were no longer concerned about the Soviets and associated Balance of Terror and so felt like it was safe to goof around like this, but to start mixing the two dynamics, the unserious politcally motivated non war silliness of the 90's, with a Cold War confrontation to include the balance of terror, well, that's where you're mixing a witches brew pregnant with all sorts of vectors for unintended consequences and escalation.

I'll hold back my outright condemnation of the strike until after Tillerson's visit. If there is not positive news from that meeting I'd be totally stunned.

What do you think about my theory of SyAF being penetrated by foreign agents who armed a warplane with a Sarin bomb for the setup?

I am so tired of listening to women bitch about Russia at the UN.

[kybkh]

>The face after ordering your first military strike as POTUS.

Imagine that feel...

[Smitty-48]

What do you think about my theory of SyAF being penetrated by foreign agents who armed a warplane with a Sarin bomb for the setup?

I of course find all the partisan conspiracy theories to try to shape the narrative in favour of the political dogma of one team or another in the bun fight, to be silly, that's not to say that one should take the Sarin charge at face value, but to wrap oneself up into a pretzel to come up with all sorts of ridiculous scenarios for why the Syrians could not have access to and would never use Sarin, is not a case of inquiry and rather a case of just being a hack.

Too clever by half, the Syrians have access to Sarin, either their own stockpile concealed from "international inspectors" or simply provided covertly by the Russians, the Russians have vast quantities of Sarin at their disposal, and neither the Syrians nor the Russians have any compunction about a judicious application of Sarin for the purposes of terrorizing the elements attepting to dipose the Baathists and drive the Russians out of Tartarus therein, with the caveat that they will seek to do so from behind the veil of plausible deniability where possible.

The Russians, now commited, are simply not going to allow their proxy to be overrun, and they will pull out the stops therein, up to and including deploying chemical weapons, that ain't no thang.

[heydaralon]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... risis.html

Yuck! Slate has some really revolting writers.

[K@th]

Thoughts?

[Smitty-48]

@kybkh

Just to add, there would be a political component to a deliberate periodic Russian deployment of CW in Syria, in order to demonstrate their resolve to back their proxy to the hilt "nothing is off the table when it comes to securing our bases in Syria..." and at the same time demonstrate that the United States is impotent in the face of it "...and America is not going to do anything of consequence about it, because they fear our retaliation, so don't look to the Americans to save you, as they will be remaining on the sidelines, just watch and see..."

[DrYouth]

You're losing sight of how escalations actually occur, escalations are generally not intentional and orderly affairs, escalation occurs, when there is a grey area, the path to escalation is through the paradigm of misapprension, miscalculation and or mistake, using the military as a prop for a political stunt, Post Cold War Monica Lewinski drill straight out of the 90's, if applied to a Cold War dynamic, is inherently dangerous, because its projecting the unserious and silly partisan nonsense dynamic of the Post Cold War paradigm into the nuclear armed confrontation of the Cold War.

To wit, the United States didn't pull these sorts of frivolous stunts vis a vis the Soviets, in the Cold War, this is a product of the Post Cold War era when the Bill Clinton's of the world were no longer concerned about the Soviets and associated Balance of Terror and so felt like it was safe to goof around like this, but to start mixing the two dynamics, the unserious politcally motivated non war silliness of the 90's, with a Cold War confrontation to include the balance of terror, well, that's where you're mixing a witches brew pregnant with all sorts of vectors for unintended consequences and escalation.

So am I right to think you consider this foolhardy.... rather than some sort of agreement between Putin and Trump that works for both of them.

[Smitty-48]

So am I right to think you consider this foolhardy.... rather than some sort of agreement between Putin and Trump that works for both of them.

Well there's an agreement in that the Americans made sure the Russians knew that it was a bunch of chickenshit beforehand, and the Russians have as a result not yet retaliated for it, because from the Russian point of view it simply confirms America's impotence and Russia's deterrence of them in terms of regime change, and of course the Russians can choose to retaliate in the time place and method of their choosing whenever they decide its time to send America a message back, but I don't think the Kremlin and the WH are hashing this all out as a mutual agreement, so much as the Americans are saying "we're gonna take a shot here, just as a political stunt, we have to make a dog and pony show, but to be clear, WE ARE NOT SHOOTING AT YOU, so for goodness sakes DON"T RETURN FIRE"

My point is simply that if you start playing these sorts of frivolous games in and around the nuclear armed Balance of Terror, you are playing with nuclear fire, because goofing around and not being entirely serious at all times, so that your adversary stops taking you seriously at all times, is how you're going to back this thing right up into an unintented escalatory spiral.

[DrYouth]

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.

[Dand]

Thoughts?

Seems #woke

But not a trustworthy source at all.