A West Australian academic who’s an expert on Russian affairs has raised the spectre of an all-out nuclear war between US and Syria.

Curtin University’s Dr Alexey Muraviev says the current situation between United States, Syria and Russia has a high potential to blow out into military confrontation.

“We have a situation of two nuclear powers openly playing military muscles against one another,” Dr Muraviev says.

“As the Cold War experiment has shown, any localised, direct confrontation could easily escalate into all-out military confrontation between the nuclear superpowers, which then would lead to the transformation of a conventional conflict into all-out nuclear war.”

Although Australia is not directly involved, Dr Muraviev believes there is still potential for Australian troops to become involved in the face-off.

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

He says much will depend on the Australian government’s decision whether to back the US military should hostilities begin.

Only days after US President Trump reportedly wanted to pull out of Syria and bring his troops home, Syrian forces unleashed bombs outside Syria’s capital Damascus, which released a toxic gas.

According to CNN, the bombs reportedly killed more than 70 people, including civilians and potentially injuring more than 500 people.

President Trump has since retracted his decision to pull out of Syria and has instead threatened missile attacks on Syria.

The New York Times claims Mr Trump pointed the finger at Russia and singled out Russian President Vladimir Putin for his support in the Syrian government.

According to the ABC, Russian military will aim to shoot down any incoming US missiles in order to protect their allies.

Hear more with Dr Muraviev here: