Obama warns Russia 'there will be costs' for any military intervention in Ukraine

[Xithras]

13. You realize, of course, that Russia is one of only a few countries that could beat us militarily.

Ukraine is essentially "home turf" for Russia. There is no conceivable way that we could beat them in a military exchange under those circumstances. Even if we beat their conventional forces (a doubtful proposition, considering that air superiority would be difficult to achieve), their missile capabilities match ours and they could sink our ships and wipe out our landing zones at a distance.

And if U.S. forces were on Russian soil (including Crimea), don't think for a second that Putin wouldn't order missile strikes on the US carrier fleets and U.S. installations near the combat zone.

Hell, Russia announced the development of a new conventional warhead ICBM system a few months ago. Depending on how far along they are with that, you could conceivably see non-nuclear Russian warheads obliterating Manhattan or Washington DC. If the Russian's see us as being on "their soil", they won't hesitate to strike back at "American soil".

Which, of course, begs an interesting question. If NORAD detected incoming Russian ICBM's, would they wait for the "flash" to determine if they were nuclear or not? Or would we just assume they were nuclear and launch in response?

Open combat against Russia is suicidal.