A Potential For Dangerous Escalation: "Russia To Destroy Any US Platforms That Strike Syria"

"Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage" - Thucydides, History Of The Peloponessian War.

Iskandr M. Short range missiles capable of conveying nuclear warheads. 

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Colonel General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, - an official whose words should always be taken very seriously - has announced that US aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic Forces will no longer go unpunished. He has threatened to destroy any platforms that will have launched missiles against Syrian Government Forces, as such acts are putting Russian servicemen in Syria in danger. What this means in practice is that, if the US Fifth Fleet were to launch the strikes against Syria government targets, the entire Fifth Fleet will be sunk by Russian retaliatory strikes. This act, of targeting the opponent's military assets, is called Counter-force and is covered by the Laws of War. But, it can easily escalate to Counter-value: the targeting of non-military assets as war, inevitably, starts to subserve its logic. 

There is, therefore, the potential for dangerous escalation, even to the general use of nuclear weapons between the two countries. This, only if the United States continues to not pay heed to those words above by Thucydides. For it is due to the United States not playing by the book, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and in other places, that we are this close to catastrophe.