Yes you are correct on all those counts. But Assad isn’t going to be ruined against ISIS by a few surgical strikes.

White phosphorus is a much more ambiguous weapon. It is legally used to destroy abandoned enemy equipment and as a marker. Sarin is a nerve agent that is only used as a chemical weapon. It has no other use in war or peace. In fact this was one of only a handful of times sarin has ever been used in anger. The other…

I was trying to emphasize limited, targeted strikes on the kinds of facilities that allowed Assad to utilize sarin. Not a shock and awe campaign meant to destroy his forces.

As I said, strike a limited number of facilities. It’s a moot point now. But I don’t think we set a great precedent allowing this guy to gas his own people. With nerve agents no less.

I think the Russians are out of luck. The global oil market is changing, and the Russians are gonna get stuck in Syria worse than they realize.

I still think we made a mistake not striking a limited number of facilities after Assad gassed civilians with Sarin.

They may be Shia, in which case it would make sense to support Assad to an extent. If they were Alawites then they would definitely benefit from supporting him. I’m not saying your friends are extremists, just that the Sunni majority will likely not be friendly to the Shia minority if they ever get in power.

This is all true. I’m not saying it’s a good idea. Just an interesting idea to ponder.

NASA T-38. They operate those and F/A-18s as experimental platforms and chase planes. NASA has quite the odd assortment of former military aircraft.

I think it would need to be at least in semi-synchronous orbit. The higher the orbit the more energy and the fewer launch satellites necessary to cover the entire planet. In GSO only three satellites would be needed.

Very true about the lack of terminal guidance due to lack of comms. But it won’t be coming by every 90 minutes, that’s the schedule for LEO. These would most likely be at GSO or semi-synchronous like GPS satellites. At GSO three satellites would cover the entire planet 24/7.

I think you underestimate the American people. And the US was hardly a backwater agrarian society in 1940. By the 1880s US industrial capacity beat out Britain to be the largest in the world. At the close of WWI the US was essentially neck and neck with British military power, and had a far larger industrial base.

I don’t think we would hit civilian targets. There’s no need to. You can cripple their military capability and cut off their energy supplies and they won’t forget it for a long time.

As devoted as we are to our consumerism as Americans, we are incredibly driven to respond to attacks against US forces. In 1940 80% of Americans wanted to remain isolationist. Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and everything changed.

I think your math is all sound, but there’s no need to worry about the energy of the launch vehicle. A kinetic penetrator weapon sits in orbit (falling) with a significant amount of kinetic energy. It would make sense to put a network of kinetic weapon satellites in geosynchronous orbit so the entire planet would be…

They conveniently left out what happens next. Either:

As effective, no. Plenty effective, yes. The US Navy could simply intercept oil tankers headed to China at strategic locations, and the PLA would be out of fuel in weeks.

Wow they didn’t even try to pretend they weren’t attacking US assets. That was definitely a Nimitz escorted by Burkes (and possibly a Perry FFG), plus F-22s and F-35s.

Our nuclear doctrine throughout the Cold War included using tactical nukes to destroy military ports in response to losing a CVN.