Originally Posted by
A_Van
Just This Once...,
This strike has nothing to do with the Russian air defense system (i.e. operated by the Russian military to protect Russian forces).
In general, Tomahawks are easy targets for modern IADS unless they come massively in decades and hundreds. Maybe the USN just overestimated capabilities of the Syrians and sent that many CMs?
Then we would have to deduce that Russia tacitly approved of the attack and did nothing with their advanced systems to protect the host nation and trusted the US enough in that the inbound TLAM tracks would not terminate anywhere near their personnel.
I am more inclined to think the Russians were caught with their pants down and the announcement from Moscow that they will be bolstering their air defence capability in Syria as a result of this attack seems to support this.
Either way, this attack by 'easy targets' got through to their own target points.