Smoke rises after airstrikes in Kafr Nabel of the Idlib province in western Syria on Oct. 1, 2015. | AP Photo Obama avoids a showdown in Syria Administration officials game out options to respond to Putin's provocations, but Obama exercises "strategic patience."

As Vladimir Putin takes increasingly provocative actions against U.S. interests in Syria, President Barack Obama is tuning out calls from Republicans and foreign policy heavyweights to punish the Russian president through military or economic measures.

They include a call from Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser to "disarm" Russian assets in Syria if Putin doesn't change his behavior, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's insistence that conflict with Russia is a risk worth taking in the name of asserting America's goals in Syria, and talk of new sanctions on Moscow.


Obama's team has been gaming out options for responding to Russia, but so far there's no plan to use any of them, even as Putin keeps upping the ante.

In the past 48 hours, U.S. officials have concluded Putin is directly targeting Syrian rebel fighters armed and trained by the CIA; Russia has violated the airspace of Turkey, a NATO member; and Putin has called on "volunteer" Russian soldiers to help defend Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Obama administration officials have warned Russia to respect Turkish airspace, which they believe Russia intentionally violated at least once on Sunday. Otherwise, they have been content to point back to Obama's Friday declaration that Syria does not represent a "superpower chessboard contest."

The White House understands that Washington's chattering class is inclined to read Russia's military intervention in Syria — which continued with dozens of new airstrikes Monday and Tuesday — as a test of wills between two leaders. But Obama remains determined to avoid a direct conflict or a proxy fight with Moscow, especially when he believes Putin is making a strategic blunder.

As Russian bombs keep falling, that position is coming under greater pressure. On Monday, Rubio, a GOP 2016 presidential contender, told CNBC that the risk of possible confrontation with Russia is outweighed by the cost of standing aside as Putin exerts his will in Syria and makes the U.S. appear weak.

Rubio repeated his past calls for a no-fly zone over Syria that would protect refugees and U.S.-backed rebel fighters from Assad's air force. Pressed by CNBC's John Harwood on whether he would enforce such a zone against Russian aircraft, Rubio said he didn't think Putin would dare to challenge the U.S.

"I don't believe he will look for a direct military conflict against the United States in order to go into a safe zone," Rubio said. When asked by Harwood whether the prospect of a military confrontation with Russia would frighten the American public, Rubio said that "the consequences of doing nothing would scare them even more." (Even before Russia's direct intervention in Syria, Obama opposed a no-fly zone as too risky.)

More surprising than the hawkish Rubio's take was a Monday Financial Times opinion piece by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's former national security adviser, who often defends Obama's policies. It argued that continued Russian attacks on U.S.-backed moderate Syrian rebels "should prompt U.S. retaliation."

Brzezinski added that "Russian naval and air presences in Syria are vulnerable, isolated geographically from their homeland" and "could be 'disarmed,'" though he did not explain how that might be done.

Another option for the administration would include reopening the debate about whether to provide lethal military equipment to the Ukrainian government for its fight against pro-Russian separatist rebels backed by Moscow. But sources say Obama has made crystal clear his view that Putin would simply raise the ante in response, making the conflict worse.

Obama might also impose new economic sanctions on Moscow beyond those already in effect as punishment for Putin's actions in Ukraine.

Both options could endanger a shaky cease-fire in that country at a time when Western officials are trying to convince Putin to prevent Ukrainian rebels from sabotaging crucial local elections in that country later this month.

Other Democratic foreign policy insiders argued that, even if Obama rules out a military confrontation with Moscow, he can't ignore Putin's challenge to American power.

"Somehow, some way, you need to reestablish deterrence, but do it in a way that doesn't rise to the risk of an escalation that you don't want. That’s the challenge," said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Obama's ambassador to NATO until mid-2013.

Without recommending a military response, Daalder noted that the U.S. enjoys clear superiority over Russia in the Middle East. "If we want to take out their military forces there, we can probably do it at relatively little or no cost to ourselves. The question is what will be Putin's response. I think if you sit in the Situation Room you have to play this one out."

Obama administration officials privately acknowledge that Putin, while intent on protecting Assad's regime, is also enjoying a psychological game aimed at making America look weak.

But that doesn't change their view that rising to his bait would be a mistake. Obama and his top advisers are convinced that Putin — facing a contracting economy and diplomatic isolation over his aggression in Ukraine — is the weak one.

"I understand that, because of history, and the Cuban missile crisis, the temptation is to make this into a U.S.-Russia, mano-a-mano, eyeball-to-eyeball-in-the-Middle-East thing. I just think the dynamics are totally different" from the Cold War, said Derek Chollet, an Obama national security official until earlier this year.

"It's telling to me that critics of the administration actually want Obama to be more like Putin," he added.

Obama is a believer in "strategic patience," a phrase at the heart of his administration's recent National Security Strategy. But that patience appears likely to be tested in the coming weeks.

Russian military deployments in Syria suggest it could be preparing to launch a new phase in the war to help Assad beat back the rebel fighters arrayed against him, U.S. officials said.

One potential focus for a ground operation could be near the city of Hama, a focus of Russian airstrikes. Russian troops are using an equestrian club in the city as a barracks, officials said, and at least six artillery pieces have been deployed in the direction of anti-government forces.

At least three helicopters, including Mi-17 “Hip” troop transports and Mi-24 “Hind” assault gunships, have deployed from Latakia to Hama. Russian commanders have also shipped a number of BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launcher vehicles to central Syria — large trucks that can fire a dozen surface-to-surface missiles carrying high explosive warheads, mines or cluster bombs.

The Russian deployments suggest that Moscow could be planning to complement its air campaign with indirect fire and helicopter attacks to help Assad’s military against the anti-government rebels.

What Washington doesn’t know yet is whether Putin intends to use this force to back a Syrian army ground offensive in Hama or whether his reported call for thousands of Russian “volunteers” to join the battle in Syria could signal a large Russian troop deployment.

“We’re waiting and seeing,” one U.S. official said.

The White House's public line on Tuesday was nonconfrontational. Press secretary Josh Earnest called Russia's violation of Turkish airspace "not consistent with the kind of constructive contribution that we'd like to see Russia make" to the U.S.-led international coalition against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Earnest also reiterated Obama's "firm commitment ... that the situation in Syria is not going to turn into a proxy war between the United States and Russia."

But others said that Putin's ongoing boldness, and questions about how far the U.S. would let him go, could eventually demand a firmer response that strikes a balance between acceptable risk and necessary deterrence.

That was the dilemma facing another American president a generation ago, during the Cuban missile crisis, when John F. Kennedy debated how to stand up to Moscow without risking a larger conflict.

"It's the challenge that Kennedy faced in October 1962," Daalder said.

Philip Ewing contributed to this report.

