Russia is not a Muslim state. Islam constitutes around 6-14% of Russia, whereas 41% of Russians consider themselves to be Orthodox Christians (being a part of the Russian Orthodox Church). The Russian Orthodox Church plays a very, very large role in the every day lives of Russian citizens and has even been called a separate branch of power in Russia as they filled an ideological vacuum after the collapse of Communism.
A little hard for me to understand, but...
"Russia’s powerful Orthodox Church on Wednesday voiced support for Moscow’s decision to carry out air strikes in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, calling it a “holy battle.”
“The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it,” said the head of the Church’s public affairs department, Vsevolod Chaplin, quoted by Interfax news agency."
Christopher Columbus wanted to sail west to land near India was because Portugal was going to gain a monopoly on the spice and silk trade as they were establishing routes around the Cape of Good Hope which is notoriously treacherous (it was called the Cape of Storms before). The reason why this south-eastern trade route was being developed was at one point with the Pax Mongolica Europeans had a relatively safe route to spices and silks from India and China via the Silk Road, and it's important to note here that this went through many Muslim countries and through the Middle East. After the bubonic plague broke out, the Mongols could no longer exert control over their trade network and the khanate shattered. Couple this with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, the call for a recapture of Constantinople, and the Turks domination of the trade routes all would lead to inflated prices that the Europeans did not want to pay. So, your assertion that "they would have better odds of surviving the seas than crossing the Middle East," is spurious.
I've gone over this in another thread. It would be a slugging match for the world to remember, but it takes much longer for Russia to have everything at its borders than 24 hours. Also the naval doctrine of most NATO countries is anti-submarine warfare as the USSR's naval doctrine put submarines as their capital ships and at paramount importance. While it's true that the
Kirov class battlecruiser was made with the purpose of slugging it out with a US carrier group, and it theoretically could (the thing is a beast), there's only one
Kirov class that's operational. However, the state of the Russian navy right now isn't too good as it's planning to replace 45% of its inventory. I want to reiterate that: Russia's navy has to replace 45% of its inventory. Russia's domestic shipbuilding industry has also been in a decline lately. We have 30,000 troops stationed in Europe, and NATO doctrine unfortunately put a lot of emphasis on using Germany and Italy as a buffer, while the Royal Navy, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway hem in the Baltic and Northern fleets giving the US time to move assets over to Europe via air and sea. Then there's also the fact that a lot of the Baltic countries are swinging towards NATO, and we now have Poland and a lot of Eastern Europe on our side rather than being part of the Soviet bloc like during the Cold War.
India will most likely remain neutral as trade with the US is integral to them. While they may be developing a supersonic cruise missile with Russia, I highly doubt it would be in their best interest to side against the US, especially considering the amount of assets we have near India, and considering that the BrahMos cruise missile costs 2.73 million a pop and is only fitted on 8 ships in the Indian Navy. In regards to Pakistan, only 13% of them view Russia favorably and only 7% of them view Putin with confidence. The United States however is the largest source of foreign aid in Pakistan, and Pakistan's second largest arm supplier after China.
In all reality Russia does not want a fight with the United States, nor do we want a fight with Russia. If it came to this, I can imagine that Russia would do a lot to try to prevent further escalation as would we. To further this view point we can see how the US and Russia are handling being in each other's airspace, "US jets have reportedly been told to keep 20 miles from the Russian jets to avoid getting caught up in clashes..."
