The Nightman Cometh wrote:Rebels shot down the Russian Helicopter rescuing the pilots with one of our missiles. We are doomed.

The Dude wrote:Right, i was looking for specifics. Reassessing doesn't really tell the story.

And with that, I am finished with this discussion. I'll just google instead of asking

When you ask Russia experts why Moscow would send its warplanes buzzing NATO airspace in Europe, they'll often point out that Russia's military is much weaker than America's and NATO's — and Moscow knows it. And indeed this military imbalance is something you hear Russian defense officials bring up constantly; this fact of their relative weakness is world-shaping for them.

So one way Russia has dealt with its relative weakness is by being more provocative, by demonstrating its willingness to raise the stakes and toe ever closer up to the line of outright conflict. The intended message of such flights isn't that Russia will deliberately start a war with the West — it won't — but rather that it is more willing to take on risk, so if the West doesn't want the headache it should just back down.

Turkey is different. Its foreign policy is, depending on your perspective, either unusually assertive or unusually reckless (or both). This is especially true in Syria, where it has long been involved in aiding the flow of rebels who are fighting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey is also at war with Kurdish groups at home, and has bombed Kurdish rebels in Iraq. It has bombed ISIS some, but only sparingly; while it does not support the group, it is not particularly focused on fighting it.

The similarities between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be among the most important factors here. Both are nationalists who rely on military power and who are seeking to cast ever-more-assertive involvement abroad — having two such escalation-prone leaders going head to head is dangerous.

A number of Russians have reportedly died in the fighting, and they don't have much to show for it. In October, Russian and Iranian forces helped Assad's army launch a big military campaign to retake territory from the rebels — and it largely failed.

Russia's Syria intervention is unpopular at home, and Putin is extremely sensitive to public opinion. A September poll by Moscow's Levada Center found that only 39 percent of respondents said they supported Russia's policy toward the Assad regime. When asked what Russia should do for Assad, 69 percent opposed direct military intervention. A tiny 14 percent of respondents said that Russia should send troops or other direct military support to Syria.

SK790 wrote:

The Dude wrote:Right, i was looking for specifics. Reassessing doesn't really tell the story.

And with that, I am finished with this discussion. I'll just google instead of asking

Please stop. Your story is irrelevant for the many reason already pointed out yet you continue to whine. Move on already.

And Rubio's closeness with donor and billionaire auto dealer Norman Braman is even more remarkable. As the New York Times's Michael Barbaro and Steve Eder chronicled, Rubio fought hard to win state funding for both a cancer center and a genomics center that were named after Braman. Afterward, Rubio went to work for Braman's company as a lawyer for a few months, Braman gave $100,000 to fund Rubio's teaching salary at Florida International University, and Rubio's wife, Jeanette, became a paid adviser to Braman's charitable foundation despite little experience in philanthropy. This year, Braman gave $5 million to Rubio's Super PAC.