Patriot's SNAFU.

Make no mistake, any complex military technology is usually very difficult to use unless one becomes a true professional and, as it is often the case, such complex systems are prone to failures. Such as S-300 here:

Yet, it seems US-made Patriot anti-missile system is unable to catch any break in terms of performance as of lately. First it failed to intercept ancient Yemeni SCUD, now this. The video is startling. 

I can only speculate on what made this missile "go back", but I experienced a friendly fire in my life and it is an incredibly unpleasant experience the moment you recognize that things get FUBAR really fast.  It was one of the closest (not the closest, though) brushes with death which I experienced as a military professional and it is definitely unique.  

This video is dramatic, indeed. As some news agencies report--one man was killed and several others were wounded on the ground in Riyadh because of this situation. So, one may then understand why both Saudis and Turks bought S-400. I have to, however, account for a recognized low standard of maintenance in Arab militaries in general and it seems with Saudis the pattern with Patriot system begins to emerge. 

In some sense this SNAFU and missile trajectory are emblematic of US foreign policy in a sense that Donald Trump and his national security people, obviously, have some bizarre understanding of the events outside the White House and if POTUS thinks that shutting down Seattle's Russian Consulate and sending 60 Russian diplomats out of the United States on a.. hm... trumped up charges in Skripal Affair are improving US-Russian relations, as he called for four days ago, one is forced to contemplate a possibility that those people in and around White House are indeed delusional. Obviously Russia's response will be symmetric and most likely US Consulate in Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg will be shut down. There is even a probability, however low, that diplomatic relations can be completely shut down by Russia but we have to wait and see. Britanistan obviously wanted to feel in control and important when unleashing Skripal's false flag I see no harm for Russia in stopping any diplomatic relations with UK. In the end, British Defense Minister--Gavin Williamson--a guy with a vast military experience through his adult-life long managing a pottery and a fire-place manufacturing company, in a fine British tradition of Dickens' and Jerome K. Jerome's wit and elegance, demanded for Russia to "shut up and go away". I think Russia should do just that and break any contacts with UK. 

Sorting things out with the US may take longer but there is no doubt at this stage that Russian-American relations are damaged beyond repair and it would take a completely new crop of competent and non-corrupt American political leaders--a very remote perspective and prospect, if possible at all--to try to repair these relation. Trump is certainly not in this league, in fact no one is in the current American political top.  Russia, meanwhile, already did what Colin Powell wisely suggested for the US to do in 1990s--"We simply must nail a shingle to our door with the words "Superpower lives here". This is exactly what Russia did and that is why so much hysteria. But, as we all know, this too shall pass either by means of curing the patient or by means of patient's death. Looks like nobody in Russia gives a damn anymore what it should be.