Russia doesn’t have to respond in force to US bombs, and it doesn’t have to engage the US forces directly. All it has to do is outlast the yankees. That’s all that Assad or a successor to him have to do.

The Taliban has shown in Afghanistan that the yankees can be defeated, just as Ho Chi Minh showed in Vietnam. Before that, both China and North Korea showed that imperial forces can be neutralized.

America’s ‘leaders’ are living on myths of American superiority. Trump’s shiny new and smart missiles are a graphic example of this kind of thinking, as is Obama’s “American exceptionalism” and Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe”. They’re all living in a dream world.

USA, Inc. is committing suicide by degrees. Russia need only exercise patience as they kill themselves. What are thought to be nickel and dime wars and engagements turn out to be long lasting sponges that soak up enormous resources. Russia and China need only wait.

The US government has outmoded second generation military forces that are incapable of conducting 4GW (fourth generation warfare). The US ‘leadership’ is a joke. It doesn’t think ahead. It focuses on unimportant side issues. It acts emotionally. It’s motivated at times by moral considerations that are irrelevant, and then at other times it ignores moral issues that are of great importance. To top it off, the US makes huge strategic blunders, as in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere. American tax slaves are stretched thin paying for expensive military hardware that cannot deal with foes who are prepared to fight the Americans for 100 years if they have to. The Herd is losing the spirit, morale and trust to maintain a far-flung empire.

Russia doesn’t have to engage the US to the point where World War III starts. If it understands the Empire’s weaknesses, it can wait while it self-destructs.