“The first thing a British pilot will do is to try to avoid a situation where an air-to-air attack is likely to occur — you avoid an area if there is Russian activity,” an unidentified source from the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) told the Sunday Times. “But if a pilot is fired on or believes he is about to be fired on, he can defend himself. We now have a situation where a single pilot, irrespective of nationality, can have a strategic impact on future events.”
What this means is one man can in the heat of the moment start the next global war. One man. Whilst this has always been possible the fact that this order has, according to the article dated 11 October 2016, been given is a rather dangerous departure from the de facto RoE over Syria if this article is true. In essence the RoE (Rules of Engagement) was that no one threatens no one and the two opposing sides in this Syrian debacle studiously stayed away from each other to the point that missions were scrubbed when it became apparent that airframes from ‘the other side’ were in the area or in transit to the area.
While one can not fathom who in their right mind would give such an order in a clearly tense and intense area of conflict it is my opinion that UK would never dream of issuing such an order without clear and explicit directives from either DC or Langley.
As an aside if hostilities begin to heat up over Syria you can rest assured that Ukraine will attack. It is common knowledge that every semi warm body and piece of equipment that may or may not move on it’s own is now in position in the Ukraine lines, Minsk be damned. If it comes to another all out fight as Debaltysevo last year there will be no stand down this time to allow the golden pheasants to leave, the cauldrons will be reduced with extreme prejudice.
I do not know if this time the North Wind will be needed as in the late summer cauldrons of ’14, Novorossiya seems to have a very well trained and equipped army of roughly three heavy divisions that can be almost instantly expanded to five. Ukraine does not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of victory. If it comes to this there may well be another victory parade in Donetsk and this time there will be a lot of foreigners marching amongst the prisoners.

Auslander
Related