They smartly dodged the bullet over Eastern Ukraine and while Putin wanted war, the West seemed to have no appetite for another large scale, well balanced-out war with Russia. The West lacked the liver necessary to take casualties and huge losses which a war against Putin's Russia over Ukraine would have certainly inflicted on both their manpower and treasury. They thought they outsmarted Putin by not yielding him his wish in Ukraine, but rather than for Putin to retract back to Kremlin, a rather more emboldened Putin has now thrown another gauntlet at the West and dared them to pick it up if they are indeed man enough and have two balls. Icheoku says by entering and taking over military responsibilities in Syria, Vladimir Putin is practically stating a claim that Russia has finally arrived back on the international arena and is ready to throw its weight around and that if America does not like it, too bad.
Vladimir Putin's Russia by moving its army into Syria seems to be goading America to throw its hat in the ring for a smack down of all smack-downs between the two permanent foes. A case of when two elephants fight, the grass suffers scenario, that will be unleashed on the rest of the weakling world, one would say? But will it happen? Will the West led by America take the bite? Will America come charging into Syria to put an end to this Russian instigation? Will America accept the challenge now publicly thrown by Putin's Russia and say not under our watch? Only that not doing that will be the only thing that will effectively checkmate what is threateningly to be the genesis of an Armageddon. A third world war conflagration that will possibly consume the world in a mushroom cloud that will make Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem kindergarten in destructive power comparison is certainly threatening. But the question remains, whether the war weary West is ready and able to take on the Putin's challenge and fight the mother of all wars to finally determine who the real last remaining super power of the world is.
Whatever happens and however the current face off in Syria finally resolves itself, one thing is given, Icheoku as well as billions of world's humanity are cautiously watching the development in Syria. Icheoku prays that common sense initiative will prevail to avert this major confrontation and that the current Syria crisis will be resolved like the Cuban missile crisis; otherwise, the world may have finally reached its tipping point with America and Russia engaged in a real hot war as opposed to their long running cold war. The good news however is that these white people will never fight themselves again after the bitter lessons that were the two previous world wars. At worse the crisis in Syria will become a stalemate, mired in covert operations, with both countries spy agencies engaged in a clandestine war that will see them being bogged down and for so long. It will eventually take one of them with the longest lasting staying power to declare victory.
Like with the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan in the eighties, where a CIA created, armed and financed Taliban gave the Soviet Union a bloody nose and eventually forced their retreat, America might equally settle this time for similarly bleeding Russia into beating it in Syria. The only snag however is that unlike Afghanistan, Syria is not terrain challenged and so it will be much easier for Putin's army to maneuver and carry out recognizance and equally outflank any would be hit and run militias. Also satellite based ordinances will quickly and more efficiently lay waste all such clandestine activities unlike the stone age weaponry and ordinances that marked the Afghanistan invasion and attempted occupation. So in short, things have so dramatically changed since the eighties that the equation will be much better balanced now to deliver the worse and more potent confrontation if ever it gets to that.
But unfortunately, Putin seems so determined not to remain any one's pushover; not anymore and might push the current Syria's crisis into a tipping point full confrontation with America and the West. Putin has since stepped up his game and with several weapons and men now already deployed in Syria, with air strikes already ongoing, it is only a matter of a slight miscalculation on the part of Russia or America, to force the issue to snowball into a global confrontation. Iran has also moved in thousands of men and large catchment of weaponry into Syria, so it is now for America and the West to stamp their claim by similarly moving in men and weaponry into Syria and then we have a recipe for actual shooting confrontation. Icheoku says that a crisis never before witnessed or seen, fought with modern weaponry and technology, is certainly afoot is no longer a far fetched proposition. Only God will help humanity avert a threatening cataclysmic plunge into a bottomless pit of sulfuric fire. What a world on a brink and between the two protagonists, America and Russia, who will blink first. Only a few weeks if not days but certainly not months will tell if the world is plunging into yet another world war.