[DIRTYSECRET]

Is Syria worth starting WW3? Russia is in bad shape but this is no place to test them. The 2-300 dead mercenaries are still Russian.

[Huaynero]

“....The 2-300 dead mercenaries are still Russian.”

and being members of a larger fraternity, their Buds have a diamond-cutting desire not so much to get mad but get even. Same as our guys in similar situation.

[jmacusa]

No. Syria shouldn’t be any concern of ours. We’ve had enough of a generation of young Americans killed, wounded and maimed for life fighting for and against the worthless Saracen bastards.Let Russia’s kids die for it. Russia has a long history of screwing itself up, between the czars and communism Russians are a hot mess.

[Zhang Fei]

[Is Syria worth starting WW3? Russia is in bad shape but this is no place to test them.]

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The Russians won’t launch against *any* nuclear state with a robust early warning and counterstrike capability. Putin, like all the Russian leaders before him, wants to be remembered as a guy who added to Russia’s holdings, not reduced it to the size of Germany, in the process of slicing its population to a few million people from its present 140m. In the wake of a nuclear holocaust, it’s possible that Russia could vanish as a nation state altogether, with its neighbors each taking hefty chunks of its territory.