General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Kerry: Bombing other countries is not "Going to war." [View all]Xithras
(16,191 posts)Frequently lost in this debate is the fact that Syria has a large number of current-generation Yakhont long range anti-ship cruise missiles that they picked up from Russia earlier this year. The Israeli's bombed the warehouses storing them in June, but it's been widely reported that our own intelligence community now believes that at least some, and possibly all, of the missiles had been moved prior to the bombing and are still in Syrian control. These current generation missiles were designed by the Russians to evade American countermeasures and attack American carrier fleets, and can do a lot of damage to anything that strays into range.
So what happens if one of our destroyers lobs a cruise missile at a Syrian military base, and the Syrians lob a cruise missile back at the destroyer? Will we claim that the Syrians attacked US, and use it as justification for a wider war? Or will we still say that a cruise missile strike isn't really "war"?