brinkmanship

War may or may not be approaching in North Korea, but what is a certainty is that the region has become a kind of military testing ground where the US, China and North Korea are each demonstrating their military capabilities for the world to see.
It is a kind of military version of Donald Trump’s former reality TV show ‘The Apprentice’, combined with a style of ‘in your face’ brinkmanship reminiscent of the so-called arms race of the Cold War.
In recent days, the US Armada which Donald Trump spoke of sending to North Korea, appeared to be sailing in the opposite direction.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is often considered to be the lowest ebb in US-Soviet/Russian relations. It is considered a classic example of brinkmanship.
But Donald Trump’s attack on Syria sinks relations lower than they were at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.
In 1961, in spite of Missiles stationed on the territory of a Soviet ally off the coast of the US, no actual shots of any kind were fired, let alone the nuclear armed missiles.

The first to die will be US troops. Russians will be made to appear as the killers, but the agents will probably be ISIS, Al-Qaeda (aka al-Nusra), Turks, or the Americans themselves. I’m not ruling out that the Russians might actually do the job, especially if the Americans order their 50 soldiers to the most likely Russian bombing targets and then dare the Russians to hit them. But most likely, the US will do the job itself and not take a chance that the Russians might miss.