President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that US missiles were coming to strike Syria, despite Russia's threats to shoot down incoming US missiles and even the platforms that fire them.
The US has struck Syria before, using cruise missiles from two US Navy guided-missile destroyers in the Mediterranean. But experts now say the US would have to go bigger to make an impact on Syria's forces under Russian protection.
With no aircraft carriers currently in the region, a heavy Russian naval presence and advanced missile defenses, and only 2,000 or so US troops on the ground in Syria, the US could seem outnumbered or outgunned.
In reality, the US has massive airpower in the region that far overpowers anything else nearby.
With the presence of the US Air Force in Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey, as well as forces on the ground, the US has a multitude of options for carrying out a strike in Syria.
Take a look at the US's firepower in the region.
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Here's the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the aircraft carrier that just left the region. It has aircraft for logistics, air-to-air, air-to-ground, intelligence-and-surveillance, early-warning, and antisubmarine warfare. It's one of 11 US aircraft carriers, and as it stands, it could make it back there within one week at full steam.
Here's a loaded F/A-18E. This one has an air-to-ground heavy load out, but it still carries air-to-air missiles in case enemy aircraft attacks the US or US-backed forces, as was the case last year when an F/A-18E had to shoot down a Syrian Su-22.
The crew can launch one of these every two minutes or so. F/A-18Es off the US aircraft carriers can fly thousands of sorties, or missions, during a single deployment.
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