Air Defense Retrospective

In From the Cold wonders why Russian tactical aircraft proved so vulnerable to an air defense system they knew intimately. I’d merely say that low-and-slow Russian tactics are going to get you shot eventually, whatever the SAM is on the ground. Major Vyacheslav Markovich, one of the Russian pilots shot down, thinks the entire war is absurd, lamenting the state of Georgia-Russia relations. And I still ask why the Georgians were not supplied with Javelin anti-tank missiles in large quantity and immediately. The Russian mechanized attack wouldn’t have made it to Tskhinvali, much less to Igoeti.