The risks of a clash between Russia and the US in the skies over Syria

The World
Russian Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack planes taking part in an air show in Russia in August. The Su-25 is one of the types of warplanes being used by Russia in Syria.

Russian forces are hitting Syrian rebel targets with airstrikes and cruise missiles. That’s making the skies over Syria crowded and dangerous.

US planes and missiles and drones are using the same space to attack ISIS. America's ally, Turkey, is pursuing its own air campaign, largely targeting Kurdish groups.

That’s making some observers worry about the risk of a clash in the skies in and around Syria.

“I’d say there’s a great risk,” says Reuben Johnson, who writes for Jane’s Defense Magazine from Kiev. “Simply because there’s very little coordination with the Russians. The Russians have been a bit parsimonious in their cooperation with the other forces operating in the region. And sometimes they give very, very short notice. With some of these strikes, the notice they have given has been less than an hour. And identification of friend and foe is always a problem in the air.”

In aerial warfare, events happen at lightning speed, and computers trigger automatic responses.

The US and Russian militaries have been holding direct talks for several weeks to try to reduce the chances of an incident. The language they use is not cooperation or coordination, points out Johnson, but de-conflicting.

“We’re just trying to prevent train wrecks,” adds Johnson.

It’s not just the risk of human error or an automatically triggered air defense missile being fired. Johnson says there are also some serious problems with Russia’s hardware.

Several cruise missiles launched by the Russian navy from vessels in the Caspian Sea this week, are reported to have crashed in Iran en route to their targets in Syria.

“The equipment can be trusted,” says Johnson. “The designers are very smart people. I have a lot of admiration for their designers. But you have two huge problems in Russia now. One is that a lot of the components that they require to keep this equipment functioning properly were either imported from the West or they were made in Ukraine. They no longer have access to those, so they have huge problems trying to come up with substitutes for a lot of these spare parts.”

“The second problem,” adds Johnson, “is that the Russian navy has shown itself in the past at not being terribly good at maintaining all this equipment at battle ready status.”

“These are the things that happen when a nation goes into a period of economic crisis. The day-to-day maintenance and care of military equipment becomes neglected.”

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