Textron AirLand Scorpion!
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That thing looks like it would be an absolute joy to fly, but after stepping on their own gown for years, Boeing finally hit one out of the park in their T-X offering. It’s an amazing bird.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means.” - Carl von Clausewitz, On War
At the Naval War College (Class of 2006, Graduated with Distinction) they drummed that into our heads.
A “Resurgent Russia” (I was one of the first to use that monicker when I was the Director of Intelligence for EUCOM’s intel center, JAC Molesworth) is simply using politics–aka diplomacy–by “other means” to get what it wants, just as it did in the Cold War. I had a font row seat (via intel sources and methods 
) for Russia’s obliteration of Georgia’s Army (OK, only 5 brigades) in 2008. Then I recalled that line from the movie Poltergeist, “They’re baaaack…”
We really shouldn’t be surprised. Calling Russia “Resurgent”, besides being nice alliteration, is accurate. Russia has a long history of using Carl’s “other means”. The “subdued” Russia after the Cold War–until Putin really took power–was a historical anomaly. So for the past decade or so they have been coming back…but “Russia’s Big Come Back” doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as “Resurgent Russia”. 
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As the Pacific Fleet N2 I have “enjoyed” several ultimate Fleet Command exercises…panful, painful experiences.
To answer your question: Under US Joint Planning doctrine you have what are called “Branches” and “Sequels”
A “Branch” is a for a “Well, that didn’t work so well, let’s try this instead” situation - akin to your “plan changes on the fly” and yes, the JTF commander has that authority to order a Branch executed.
The idea is to think of things that could go wrong and plan for them, in writing, before you start fighting. Since “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”, we try to plan a lot of branches.
BTW “sequels” are for “Wow, that went much better than expected. What should we do now?” situations…we plan sequels but we never expect to really use one.
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As a non-american it really is just Russia joining the world stage with the US’ favourite game. Not a surprise nor really worrying, kind makes sense after such a long time.
I’d call it more of Russia coming back onto the World Stage in the Act II.
And this time they are entering from Stage Right instead of Stage Left…get it?…before they were communists…“Leftists”…
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How cheesy, you could make infographics for a major network with that talent 
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BTW - my intel spidy-sense tells me to be much more concerned about the Chinese in an air battle, than Russia.
First, the geography is against us with a few air bases hundreds of miles away.
Second - the Chinese Air Force–the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force or PLAFF and the Chinese Navy’s air arm–the Peoples Liberation Army Navy Air Force or PLANAF (I kid you not. That is what they are called) have lots of shiny, new 4-Gen fighters with lots of airbases to support them under the protection of modern SAMs…and now a capable aircraft carrier that employs some of those shiny new airplanes.
(That have lots of new ships, subs and missiles too, but this is an F-16/F-15 discussion)
Again one issue becomes “Gas in the Air”. It is a long way from Okinawa or Guam just to get to the battle space - hitting several tankers - there and back. At that point F-15 or F-16 may not matter, except which is faster on the tanker.
It also becomes an issue of ramp space. That would argue for the F-16’s. They are smaller. Especially since you are sharing ramp space with AWACS and tankers and UAVs’ etc.
I’d offer that they should just flip a coin since there are far too many factors to realistically judged…but the F-16 Mafia probably has a two-headed coin…
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So there are a few short term stressors, and one long term imperative.
In the long term Russia is trying to achieve regional security for themselves. In 1941 the Germans went East. By the time the Soviets pushed them back, they’d lost 11,000,000 soldiers, enough civilians they stopped trying to count (estimates are between 7,000,000 and 20,000,000), and the infrastructure from Moscow to Berlin had been thoroughly decimated. The soviets, seeing this was the second time this had happened in thirty years, decided it would not happen again…
The Soviet border was pushed west to give more land for defense, the countries that would be known as the Warsaw Pact had communist puppet governments installed to create a massive, friendly aligned buffer state. Germany was divided, a communist government instated and a sizable army was placed in it just to reinforce the point. To paraphrase, the point was to keep the east safe, the Germans down, and the west out. This began falling apart in the 90s, clearly, but the Pact states had just as many problems as Russia, and their role as a buffer was still intact. When the EU, and especially NATO began expanding into this area, is when Russia starts getting cagier. With the Ukraine, they seem to feel that once more the western “knife” is up against their throats again, and they need to do whatever is necessary to prevent a repeat of the 41’-45’ war.
What we see as heavy handed meddling in the affairs of their neighbors, Russia sees as necessary steps to restore their national security.
In the short term:
Russia has felt that it’s role on the international stage has been unacceptably diminished. Since 1990, they will cite the US’s unrestrained willingness to take unilateral military action across the globe without consulting the international community (or at least, them). This reached a head with the Arab Spring. Syria was/is Russia’s last real foreign ally after the end of the Cold War, and if Libya wasn’t an ally, Qaddafi was at least a friendly acquaintance. When Odyssey Dawn / Whatever NATO Country X calls it was beginning to ramp up, Russia loudly and repeatedly warned NATO not to attack Libya. NATO blew them off.
Lastly there’s the 2012 Russian Presidential Election. If you don’t follow up on Russian politics, the rub was this: Putin was elected in 2000, and served two four year terms as president. When his term was coming up in 2008, he created the new position of Prime Minister, had Party Lackey Dimitriy Medvedev elected President, and had himself elected Prime Minister. After Medvedev’s term was up, Putin runs for a new term, and wins in an blatantly crooked election. A bunch of protests pop up around major city centers, things get ugly. The US and leaders in western Europe release gently disapproving statements equating to “Hey, that’s not cool, democracy is pretty rad”. Putin is furious. He sees this as unacceptable western meddling in domestic Russian affairs, and a betrayal of his overtures to a reset of relations with the west.
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You know, we’ve been talking about the air defense/air superiority scenario and I think we all saw something very important last night.
Almost 60 cruise missiles were launched at an airfield and while we don’t know how many actually made it to the target, it appears that a considerable number of them did. It would seem that during ‘war conditions’ the modern air defense network is not as reliable or effective as the manufacturer suggested on the packaging. The country that was on the receiving end of some Tomahawks deploys the TorM1 air defense system that allegedly can ‘hit a bullet with a bullet’, and it failed to do so.
Which suggests that for at least some scenarios, our somewhat aging inventory can still get a surprising amount of work done.
That read like the briefing or intro to a great sim scenario…ship, tank, or aircraft…!
Well, we did telegraph what we were doing to the Russians (by the news accounts anyway), so they probably either forwarded the coordinates of their special systems (don’t they have S3 or 4XX systems there?) to the U.S. to specifically avoid targeting, or (just as likely) we already knew where they were and took efforts to not hit that stuff. It certainly would have been interesting if the SXXX systems engaged the Tomahawks though huh?
I don’t know much about the TorM1 system - but perhaps the Russians mentioned to the Syrian operators that a whole bunch of hurt was headed their way…so all that stuff might have went unmanned for the duration. It would be interesting to know.
No idea of authenticity or what is or not captured in this post strike drone footage. Consider the source…
They do have the S-400 deployed to the region as well as the Pantsir. It would be interesting to find out if the Russians said, “hey, what say we pop one off at a Tomahawk and see if this thing works?”
The Syrians have had the Tor for a while. They bought it to deter the Israelis. Hasn’t worked very well.
Remember the S-400 is a deterrent against things flying high and fast. Considering how the coastal terrain is in that area, I’d be shocked if the Triumf ever saw the missiles. Killing things like Tomahawk is more the job of the SA-17 and the SA-15.
I’m betting for the most part, they hit what they wanted to hit. If there is a HAB or two untouched, it is because they didn’t need it hit. Precision guided munitions (PGMs) don’t produce the kind of big areas of destruction that a massive B-17 raid or a B-52 Arc Light strike did. So unless you happen to be the unlucky individual with a “warhead targeted to your forehead”, there isn’t much “visual impact”…as it were.
Also PGMs are incredibly expensive (especially TLAMs) . During my career, when I was in charge of various targeting efforts, we liked to have a real good reason to “service a target” (really, that is what it is called) with an expensive PGM…just say’n.
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Wow…of curse we published intel reports about all this but they had to be all formal language. I wish I could have written it just as you have. In one cogent paragraph you have summed up Putin’s rise to power and current recalcitrant attitude towards the west. Well done.
Have you ever considered a career as a three-letter agency analyst?
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Never seriously, but that’s mostly because I have no idea what the job actually entails. 
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You sit in a cubical in a building with no windows, read a bunch of “raw intel” reports, figure out what they all mean and write that up in a “finished intel” report. At the end of a finished intel report you have to say what is going to happen next…it helps if you analytical predictions are correct…at least most of the time…
You also go to a lot of meetings…wear a lanyard with lots of impressing looking badges…and depending on the three-letter agency you may have good food at work (the cafeteria at Langley s AWESOME).
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Oh boy… Air Force Authorizes Extension of F-16 Service Life to 2048
The Air Force claims it has the capacity in the F-16C community “to recapitalize … radar to serve the same function as the F-15 has done and thereby reduce the different systems that we have to sustain and operate, so that makes it more efficient,” said Maj. Gen. Scott D. West, director of current operations and the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations at the Pentagon