Before I say anything, I would like to point out the fact that I find the possibility of the U.S. and the Russian Federation engaging in direcet combat to be virtually nil.

With that said, it would be impossible for the United States to mount a land invasion - we don't have the troops. It was take a massive effort, something along the lines of our WW2 mobilization to make this happen.

In terms of air power, I would predict that for the most part we would control the skies over Russia within a short time. Lets remember, when Russia invaded Georgia, the Georgian Air Force only had 5 or 6 F-16's. It took just over a week for Russia to shoot them all down.

Even then, we would take massive losses in regards to our legacy aircraft (B-52's, F-16's F-15's) from SAM sites and other such AA facililites. The Russians, at this point in time do not have the means to launch a campaign on U.S. soil, but they could severly damage our assests and interests abroad (Guam, Japan, South Korea, Southern Asia, Eastern Europe).

It would be a lose / lose for both sides should such a campaign unfold. Niether side would gain anything - the costs of mounting such mission added to the damage of infrastructure in both countries would set the respective nations back at least 50 years.

Who wants that? Both sides would rather be at the top of the totem pole chiding each other than to actually engage in combat and fall to the bottom rung.

The thing is, there is not a massive difference in ideaology like there was in the Cold war - it isn't Communism vs. Democracy / Capitalism.

Proxy wars, that is a different story and they will continue to be had - only question is what will the next battleground be? I predict Africa.




[edit on 24-3-2009 by crisko]

All depends. History has shown over and over again that defenders have the home-court advantage over the attacker. And Russia proudly has demonstrated over and over again that it can repel an invader. Neither Putin or Medvedev is foolish enough to attack a major power outright. I don't know about their US counterparts, but seeing as they invaded Iraq without much reasonable backing, I think it would be the US that would attack Russia first. Then I have little doubt that we would win. We might not be able to launch a counter-invasion of the US, but just beating back any invasion attempt would be more than enough for everything.