Russia To Treat U.S. Planes In Syria As "Targets".
KING: Welcome back to the world stage. Now, the U.S. military downed a Syrian fighter jet and now Russia is responding by putting crosshairs on any coalition plane that violates its air space. CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. Barbara, the Russian military says it will now consider U.S. planes crossing into center air space as targets. U.S. commanders take that seriously and do they view it as a real escalation?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, tensions are rising and rising throughout this very day, John. A short time ago, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition told us that in fact, aircraft, coalition aircraft which largely means U.S. war planes are being repositioned over Syrian air space, that they will fly, they are not detailing it, but they will fly differently because of the rising threat and this is in response to what the Russians have been saying and doing and to what the regime is saying and doing. So we are now within hours of the Kremlin making that statement, that threat against the U.S. military. We are seeing the U.S. military essentially respond with a very public statement, sending a message back to the Kremlin that they will reposition their aircraft, they will be very cautious, but we are told they will continue to conduct operations against ISIS and the U.S. wants to keep that so-called deconfliction line, the communications channel, with Moscow open. So both U.S. and Russian military officials every day continue to talk about where they are flying so there is not a disaster. But this is a day when we saw the Kremlin threaten the United States and the U.S. respond. It's verbal right now but nerves are a bit frayed, John?</s>KING: Nerves are a bit frayed. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you, Barbara. We'll keep an eye on that. As we come back in the room, consider what Barbara just said and what's happening over the air in Syria, I want to take you back last week, a hearing on Afghanistan. The President of the United States has given his defense secretary authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. John McCain questioning Defense Secretary James Mattis and John McCain is not happy.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Do you agree that we're not winning in Afghanistan?</s>JAMES MATTIS, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Sir, I understand the urgency. I understand it's my responsibility. We are not winning in Afghanistan right now and we will correct this as soon as possible.</s>KING: Well, that was last week. And Senator McCain also writing an op-ed saying, "Six months into the new administration, it still has not delivered a strategy. We cannot keep going like this. If the administration fails to develop a strategy for success, Congress will need to play a greater role." We are five months into the administration. Whether you're talking about the very tense situation in Syria right now or the President essentially outsourcing the decision about troop levels in Afghanistan, is it fair to say the President has not been articulated enough about how he plans to conduct all these things? Or do people think this approach of let the Pentagon, this is a general, this is a seasoned guy, it's his, is that the right approach?</s>CALMES: Well ultimately, the President has -- I mean, there's not a policy yet, a strategy yet, for Afghanistan or Syria. He had said there would be one for defeating ISIS on his first day in office. We haven't seen it. The -- you know, the military to some extent can applaud the fact the President has loosened the restrictions, has given them more freedom to make decisions. At the same time, that also has had, we've seen it already where it's had the effect of letting the President distance himself from things. When the SEAL incident went bad in Yemen, he said that was the fault of the generals. So, you know, you need the President to have buy-in and needs to be seen, he needs to be enunciating the policies for the American people. We don't have declarations of war. We don't have strategy. We need to hear from him.</s>RAJU: And pressure is going to grow on him presumably to get authorization for use of military force if -- particularly if this becomes more U.S. involvement, may be even ground troops is potentially escalating, increasing ground troops in Afghanistan. That's going to come -- this will come with an increasing amount of pressure. But clearly giving Mattis this authority caught a lot of people on the Hill by surprise. Some were felt OK about it though because a lot of them trust James Mattis who was confirmed over</s>KING: And candidate Trump said let's get out of Afghanistan. He been tweeted this. So this is before he was candidate, time to get out of Afghanistan way back 2012, we're building roads and schools for people who hate us. It's not in our national interest. So, in some ways this is part of learning on the job. That's not picking on the President. A lot of candidates say things or people -- before they run for office say things and they get the job and it gets very hard. But there are -- you hear Senator McCain and others saying Mr. President, you can give Jim Mattis the decision but please outline something for us so we at least know the umbrella strategy.</s>SHEAR: Well, and that's part of the thing that what's striking about this is that you had several previous presidents, you had a march towards more presidential power. Presidents that want to bring the decision making into the White House, into the National Security Council away from the Pentagon, away from Congress. The debate over whether or not presidents should have to go to Congress more often to conduct the military strikes that sort of fall short of all-out war. This is the first time you have seen a president sort of as Jackie says, kind of shrug off some of this responsibility, which both from a political perspective is kind of strange. And also, Congress is going to start reasserting itself if the president continues down this path.</s>HAM: I mean, he's walking a strange line here, right? Because he's got -- I think his sort of ethos is to show American strength but also not a ton of interventionism and that's what he promised, right? He also trusts his generals and folks on the Hill, trust them as well. But I think there's a question always in this White House of where's the message coming from and who is authorized to give it. And that's a problem when you're talking about military actions. You have to sell them to the American people.</s>KING: Absolutely. And that's the commander-in-chief -- that's why they call him the commander-in-chief. Thanks for joining us in the Inside Politics. See you back here tomorrow. Wolf Blitzer in the chair after a quick break.