Currently NATO needs Turkey more than Turkey needs NATO. That won’t be the case if things escalate. Firstly, Erdogan is an Islamist, who would much rather bomb the Kurds than act against IS. Like the Saudis, he opposes Assad’s regime and supports several rebel orgs which are not exactly the nice kind. Germany already…

That’s even worse. There is no way they could have warned and fired on the plane while it was in Turkish airspace. That’s only 2 miles! They wouldn’t even be in their airspace for more than 30 seconds.

Really Turkey? Really? Was that *really* necessary? Looking at the flight track of the Jet, it doesnt look like a ‘Intentional’ cross into the border, or a attack mission into Turkey.

I think turkey needs to fuck the fuck off, according to the CNN TUrk map it shows it crossed turkish airspace twice, so how can ten warnings be issues over a quick cross over?
It’s impossible. .
Furthermore, who’s side is turkey on?
We already know they allowed rebels to store sarin gas on turkish territory and we…

Actually Russians were bombing “moderate rebels”, who were doing Paris-style terrorists attacks for years now in Syria, killing innocent women children and men in thousands.Doesn the number of 250000 dead Syrians since 2011 means notthing to you?BTW boomers in black sea is really silly idea;

I desperately want to see it land and 25 guys come out to the sound of calliope music.

On one hand I’m happy to see that someone still flies F-14’s.

This bear’s playing the long game. Let the idiot make his video. All the other idiots will see the video, and try to splash other bears.
Boom! 1,000 easy bear meals.

Yes, THIS. Continuity is often overlooked. You have teams like the Clippers overhauling their roster thinking they can add missing pieces. But there’s a lot to be said to having a core 5-7 guys that have been together for a couple of years and know each other very well.

In Mali they had a population cheering them on as they routed desert wahabis from modestly developed exurban communities. I suspect ISIS has some sympathizers in the disaffected Sunnis of Iraq. Sure the Yazidis will cheer when we arrive, but who among the Sunnis will welcome central Iraq state control of Western Iraq?…

Consider operation Serval by the French in Mali. It is template for how good an operation like this can go. I doubt the French have the stomach, nor the Russians the competence to do it in Sunni Iraq though.

First, the writer notes that in the aftermath of the bombing of Turkey’s capital Ankara that took over 100 lives and injured more than 400 others just over a month ago, there weren’t any similar shows of solidarity during international matches

Supposedly the -J’s have some major COG and flight characteristic differences from earlier hercs, which the AC’s boom-boom kit apparently exacerbated.

All I can say is that Wikipedia is wrong. The Tu-160 was a response to the XB-70 and an evolution of the Myasishchev M-18, the B-1B is an evolution of the XB-70.

It is widely known, and accepted, that design work on the Tu-160 started 1-2 years before the B-1; the Tu-160 had its features lifted off the Tu-22M…

If you have read what Isis does to the civilian population you would understand those innocents who could flee fled, those men who resisted were killed, the women were raped and killed or sold, and the children raped and killed too. Isis traffics in body parts of the civilians and feeds on them that can’t be sold,…

I always remember that story about the KGB and Beirut’s wave of kidnappings in the 80’s whenever the Russians talk about hunting...

A joke, of course, but it does take a substantial chunk out of the net velocity of the rounds, making aiming a different breed of cat entirely. Say, at 600 mph, take 880 feet per second off the velocity of the round, which is comparable to a WW2 Oerlikon, or a Brobdingnagian .30-06, at 2300 fps.

Russia uses the Happy Gilmore approach...ie, UN: “you just hit that guy!” , Putin: “shouldn’t have been standing there!” Then they just continue on giving negative 5 fucks what anyone thinks.

Mmm, tailgun. No sneaking up for a donkey punch on this one...

Why are we dicking around? Nuke the city.