Makes sense. Russia dominates the field of cost effectiveness.

I can only imagine what a boots on the ground scenario would look like...

Painting a jet from hundreds of miles away is pointless if your missile tech is lagging such that you don't have a missile with that range.

There is a small pullout chemical toilet and a very small food heater. They are blocked by the door when on the ground, so it is very hard to see a picture of them (plane has to be airborne with the camera looking back and down).

Whay’s even worse is that if we try to counter them, it means throwing in with some pretty radical groups. We really have painted ourselves in

It really is a sad day when I realize that the United States, the former symbol of unity, freedom, democracy, and peace, is probably the biggest threat to peace in the Middle East and indeed most of the world.

Agreed. It really makes me angry that our leaders have this “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality. It is pretty appalling that we are throwing in with know terrorists groups so we can oppose Russia

I think carpet bombing/unguided bombs/cluster bombs are more effective for fear factor. If ISIS is using spotters, they can easily vacate the area around an artillery piece as a guided bomb obliterates it and nothing else. A B-52 dropping a salvo of unguided bombs will destroy everything around it, and is a wonderful…

Lol. True that. Repeatedly arming the most radical factions and then expecting a different resust would be insanity I guess

Yes

And yet many U.S. Leaders refuse to consider a Syria with Assad... I am starting to question the sanity of these guys at the top

It is an interesting time. I have to say that be it ISIS or the FSA being bombed, there is no love lost here with me. One thing is for sure, Russia is in Syria, and we can't really do anything about it.

Interesting news.

I was kinda hoping Russia would do that just for the sake of repeating history.

If the pentagon had not put that stupid VTOL requirement in, both probably would have been substantially better. With the amount extra of extra cost that every other JSF frame has, it would have been cheaper to just build a separate VTOL.

Yes. And if you talk to the Georgian military, the vessel sunk of the coast of Abkhazia and those destroyed are harbor are still listed as active on their registery.

I see that a lot to. People seem to forget that militaries need to be able to engage several different types of threat.

And Russia also has the home team advantage in that many people their see them as allies. A stray Russian bomb hitting civilians is probably going to be easier to smooth over than a stray American bomb, since we are the traditional boogeymen of that part of the world.

Agreed. It is a beauty

I think you are correct. It irks me that we seem to have played our role very well in that game. On the bright side, we could have that better handled under a new administration, but then again, we could be wishing for the current one back...