Originally Posted by
Thekri
Not really. Guns are already fired frequently, and the Russians have lost a lot of Soldiers in Syria, with a fair few of them killed by Americans. How many is unclear, but certainly some. Russian forces also fight Turkish Forces directly.
This situation is different because middle east wars tend to be really, really, really complicated, much more then most people realize. Who is fighting who is an extremely complex diagram, with a lot of if/then logic paths involved. The specific area this incident occurred in revolves around the SDF (Syrian Defense Forces) who are technically allied with both the US and Russia.
Trump is pretty much directly responsible for setting this condition, because Russia was only able to ally with the SDF after the US abandoned them during the Turkish Invasion. Since Russia was willing to help them defend all of their territory, and the US was only willing to help them defend part of it, they set an alliance with both. The situation gets more complex when you look at the area the US is "Defending", which is primarily the oil fields the SDF seized from the Syrian government five years ago. These oil fields are incredibly complex politically, since they technically still belong to the Syrian government, but were taken by US backed SDF forces, who now claim them. However, apparently earlier this year the SDF sold the rights to the oil field to the Russians (Since you know, they helped them when the US abandoned them), but the Americans are still sitting on top of them and refusing to allow the Russians access.
So the Russians are attempting to pressure US forces to leave, so they can have access to the oil wells, and the US is sitting on top of them for no damn reason, except because Trump claims "We kept the oil". Basically this is the result of a 4 year old creating our Syrian policy. This is why Mattis resigned in the first place. The US has absolutely no reason to be there, other then to sit on Oil that Trump wants for no reason, that we have no legal claim too. Russia tried using Wagner Group to attack the oil wells and force us off, and that led to at least 20 destroyed vehicles and between 40 to 400 fatalities (No US losses). So they aren't likely to do that again.
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I mean the US is not really the good guys in this situation. The individual soldiers are good people, but they are sitting on top of oil wells that we have no legal claim to, blocking access to Russia who bought the rights from the SDF. Because Trump is throwing a temper tantrum and essentially using the US military for piracy.