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And next, Syria?

On War Is Boring U.S. Commandos Got Spooked by Shoulder-Fired Missiles
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Since at least October 2014, American commandos have beenflying around Iraq. More than a year later, likely with the help ofspecialized aircraft, the elite troops launched a new mission in Syria.

Despite the apparent urgent need for new defensive gear, so far there have been no reports of terrorists shooting down commando aviators with missiles or any other weapons. The U.S. Army blamed the crash of a small, secretive spy plane in Iraq in March on a “dual-engine emergency,” according to the January-May issue of the service’s aviation safety magazineFlightfax.

But, given the potential threat, the Pentagon clearly isn’t taking any chances.
With some already in theatre and KSA threats of flooding more MANPADs into Syria with a risk of proliferation to really bad guys and some FSA flagged mobs not that US friendly this seems only prudent.
 

Well that will even things up a bit: 40 rocket Grad launchers (MBRL), unguided indirect fire and sometimes a bit controversial when used by the wrong people. A Grad fired from distance can land anywhere in a 54K square metre area.
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Grad rockets, typically used for their capacity to affect a wide area at great range, have been shown in a number of conflicts to result in unacceptably high levels of harm to civilians when fired into a populated area. (See, e.g. the Report of the Independent International Fact Finding Mission in Georgia, Vol. II, 2009, 338-343; AOAV, Syria’s Dirty Dozen: The Grad, 2013.) A categorical presumption against the use, in populated areas, of Grad rockets and other explosive weapons with wide area effects (due to low accuracy of delivery, high dispersal and/or large blast/fragmentation radius) can help prevent and reduce harm to civilians.
I do recall seeing pictures of what looked like a truck mounted MBRL being supplied to Idlib before the last JaF offensive on Aleppo. The one where the hard working rebels were at one point producing almost as many civilian casualties as the regime and actually killing more kids as mentioned above. Their batteries of improvised artillery was being blamed not MBRLs but it's not hard to anticipate the result of commercial MBRLs being supplied. It's pretty typical of the way of war amongst the people. The rebel answer to the notorious improvised barrel bomb.
 

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However, Russia’s problem is that Assad’s position may never be secure as long as their rivals are determined to keep the war going. If the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and their rebel clients keep throwing wrenches into Assad’s machinery of war, the government side may eventually fall apart, too.

In this sense, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a bad spot: he has led Russia into a place from where an honourable exit can be granted only by his rivals.
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Lund's opinion.

Well consider Southern Syria where the rising started. It is now much quieter with the revolt collapsing into infighting and mainly because the Russians cut a deal with Jordan. This is a very foreign civil war.

If you compare this war with post-Saddam Iraq next door the civilian body counts (if NGOs are to be believed) are in the same ball park. The Syrian insurgents have so far been much less prone to target enemy civ pop. The majority of civilians killed are as a result of the actions of the state but it's combatants that make up the majority of the dead with the regime suffering a greater rate of attrition than the rebels. We've only seen hints of the sort of bloody campaign against Shia markets that AQI and others waged in the early years of this century. After a bit more than half a decade Iraq's bloodiest years were subsiding though there was always quite a high level of violence. That was mainly due to splits in the Iraqi rising with parts of it losing popular support or changing sides. This did not lead to a stable Iraq but rather a pause and a all to predictable disastrous repeat of the Sunni Arab rising in which IS staged a well planned coup to dominate the insurgency. It's far from inconceivable that this cycle may recur with Iraq being a nagging trouble spot.

Due to lack of manpower and Bashar's lousy management it is unlikely Damascus will ever get back the level of control Baghdad and Irbil now have reaching out into the largely empty wilds. The revolt in Syria which has attracted Sunni foreign fighters in far larger numbers will probably have a far more severe Salafi-Jihadi infection than Iraq. The war as it goes on may morph into something more covert. Perhaps a vicious sectarian terrorist campaign of the AQI kind than the current stand up revolt. This may not meet our now Counter-Terrorism focused goals with the conquest of al Sham still being a rallying cause.

I suspect we'll work hard to deny Russia any victory in Syria even of the messy sort Putin had in Chechnya. While this thrashes against our CT goals we seem unable to stop under a reluctant Obama. The next POTUS will be more self righteously belligerent but will face the same reality: there is no viable replacement for the bloody regime of Bashar. There may be a lull like in Iraq as the Northern revolt collapses under military pressure and parts seek terms. If we finally desist our allies the Turks and Saudis will continue to meddle with what Russian propaganda may call "a few dead enders". Moscow may call that peace but won't really be able to leave Latakia. Russian lilly pad basing will remain so forces can be surged in to counter wider risings.
 

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Before the attack, an official at the coalition air command center in Qatar phoned a Russian official at a military base in Syria and informed him of the general location where the strike would occur. U.S. officials notify the Russian military of strike plans in certain cases, including when they say that government forces may be in the area.

About 20 minutes after the first bomb was dropped, a Russian official called back, saying he had something to pass along to the designated liaison officer.

By the time the U.S. officer spoke with the Russian official, who informed him that coalition planes might be hitting Syrian government forces, almost an hour had gone by. Less than five minutes later, commanders gave the order to cut the short operation.

[10 new wars that could be unleashed as a result of the one against ISIS]

At the Pentagon, senior officials were aghast, worrying the incident might derail a hoped-for cease-fire between the Syrian government and opposition forces. The Pentagon was already on the defensive over its barely veiled opposition to negotiating a deal with Russia that would have led to unprecedented military cooperation with Moscow.

Fady Mallah, who leads a pro-government militia that was present at Jabal al-Tharda, said that Islamic State forces were not far from where Syrian fighters were hit. He said a large number of militants were at “shooting distance” — about 200 meters, he said, from pro-government forces at the time of the attack.

After the strike, men identified as Syrian soldiers described it on Syrian television, saying they had observed surveillance planes all day before the strikes began in the late afternoon. Their positions, which included trenches, security walls, tanks and vehicles, were struck more than 12 times, they said from a hospital in Deir al-Zour.

“At first, we thought they were our planes,” one young fighter told a pro-government news channel from his bed. “Then they started hitting us. . . . All our colleagues were killed.”
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Very fishy, I'm sure experienced targeting staff know full well that Syrian regime defences are crawling with irregular fighters of all sorts. Assuming any towel head with an AK is IS won't work you'd be hitting their enemies frequently. This isn't new in Deir and they've been bombing around this site for some time. Of course it is easy to make a mistake as these folk are not easy to distinguish from IS, a group that often even mimics regular troops as a tactic. What you need is reliable tracking of regime positions you are bombing in proximity to. Which brings me back to why, especially in the middle of critical peace talks that the regime does not care for, you'd be risking bombing so close to the defenders of long IS besieged Deir in the first place.

Well I'd say that's very much what a long Air Support operation gone wrong might look like. That's why you have a forward air controller on the ground not relying on some reportedly slow moving Russian fobbit, maybe some SIGINT and a deniable kill chain.
 

Pentagon luke warm over mooted Turkish participation in taking Raqqa. Has the Turks saying the FSA is 65K strong and could replace the PKK in the fight for Raqqa. I doubt 10% of that could be deployed East of Aleppo.

Pentagon also warning Ankara off from taking a crack at al Bab as they say they plan to. Retired Turkish generals quoted in this article rather skeptical there is a coherent plan or that al Bab could be held. I suspect the idea is more to deter a PKK grab for the town that the Pentagon it seems would not support anyway.

It's not just US strategy that's a mess in Syria what the Turks are up to is an inshallah operation nearly as delusional as Assad's reconquista dreaming.
 
On Al Jaz Iraq: ICRC aerial camera captures damage in Ramadi

Just for comparison, 80% of structures badly damaged, still littered with IS booby traps. Nearly a hundred people have been killed or badly injured attempting to return to live in Anbar's capital since IS were driven out. Estimated reconstruction cost for just this smallish city $20 billion. Which a relatively wealthy petro-state like Iraq may have one day if the oil price goes up. Where the ugly Assad clan's broken "useful Syria" would ever find the money for reconstruction is beyond me.
 
On Syria Direct US-led coalition destroys two bridges in IS-held Deir e-Zor, leaving civilians in the lurch
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The coalition says it is targeting IS supply routes, but a Mayadeen resident and an activist monitoring events in Deir e-Zor told Syria Direct on Wednesday that IS can find alternatives to the destroyed infrastructure, while civilians cannot.

“The biggest impact will be on civilians,” Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the Deir e-Zor is Being Slaughtered Silently media campaign told Syria Direct on Wednesday. Ramadan is not currently inside Syria, but is in contact with Deir e-Zor activists and residents.

“IS makes bridges” that civilians are not allowed to use, said Ramadan, “by using concrete drainage pipes, and putting dirt on top of that.” The group also reportedly has a number of rafts it can use to traverse the river.

Disabling the Mayadeen and al-Eshara bridges “can only affect heavy machinery like tanks and cannons,” he added.

The bridges linked villages on the northeast bank of the Euphrates river with cities on the opposite bank, meaning they served not only as supply routes for IS fighters, but also as lifelines for local civilians. Their destruction “effectively dismembers” the area, Murad, a resident of Mayadeen told Syria Direct on Wednesday.

“Putting aside visits, relatives and relationships, the transport and trade of agricultural products and goods is the most important,” said Murad.
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Strangling IS's supply lines can't really be done without collateral effects on an already struggling population. Same's true of Mosul with the city relying on trucked in food that uses the same routes as IS does.
 
In FP Putin Is Playing by Grozny Rules in Aleppo

Samantha Power is quoted here “What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism — it is barbarism.”. It occurs to me that exposes a bit of a basic confusion when hammering the well battered R2P war drum.

The US is doing C(ounter)T(errorism) in Syria aided by an arm of a designated terrorist group. It's doing this while encouraging a Sunni insurgency infested with more easily identifiable terrorists. It's also fighting a very similar recurring Sunni insurgency against an incumbent government next door. The less Byzantine minded Russians on the other hand have a straight forward CO(unter)IN(surgency) campaign in Syria and doing it their way. Moscow seeks to restore the political status quo in Syria. They talk a lot about terrorism and that may be a peripheral concern but then that they know it is what US voters actually support fighting while now being extremely sceptical about the value of ousting Arab despots no matter how brutal. And that creates a very tricky dilemma for Power who wrote a very good book on the subject of genocide that was haunted by the Clinton administration's failure to act in Rwanda.

A dose of barbarism is Putin's model for success in these things. I think the Russians are a bit sceptical of our drones, surgical strikes, FM 3-24, tache d'huile, anthropology weaponised etc way of doing things. If they look back to the (mostly failed) French examples we draw on for theoretical guidance it would be more on applying the blowtorch to the population as learnt from the Gestapo. A harsh critic might say looking at Iraq this is because there is little actual evidence our methods do more than encourage the infestation while brutalised Chechnya has been relatively peaceful. We are actually doing CT in a lot of places and that's just scratching at a symptom that easily develops in chaotic states. The Russians are more like Sherman marching through risen Georgia as misremembered by Georgians.

Anyone familiar with the high calorie Soviet way of COIN against what they called Islamo-fascism in Afghanistan would recognise a preference for applying lots of punitive firepower to a risen area's population goes further back than Grozny II. The 40th Army used so much ordnance pounding Muhj areas that it logistically exhausted them while the insurgent beards mainly mined their busy supply lines. Not that the Russian way worked in this example but then its hard to defeat an externally supported insurgency with secure rear basing as we've found out up there lately.
 
Dropping the odd bomb on Al Qaeda while supporting their insurgency with weapons , finance and international diplomacy is either a very shit anti Al Qaeda strategy or a very good pro Al Qaeda strategy . I'm pretty sure at this stage which one it is .

The yanks are under absolutely no doubt whatsoever their war effort is not only inseparable from Al Qaeda in the field, but that Al Qaeda are utterly crucial to it . The facts are that AQ is a tool in the war chest , just as they were in the past .
 
In The Guardian Sectarian fighters mass for battle to capture east Aleppo

A rather biased bit of headline writing though it's meant to be a corrective to Sunni rebels being labelled as sectarian lately. I'd say there's been assumption of Shia/Alawite sectarianism and Sunni victimhood in much of the coverage of the region that has never jibbed with reality. Balanche has been pointing out the obviously sectarian nature of much of the Syrian revolt for years while the MSM persisted in telling a very different Arab Spring fairy story. It's just got much harder to maintain this state of denial as evidence mounts and radical Salafi move to the fore.
 
Yeah I read that yesterday, pretty nuts. The extremists hate each other as much if not more so that they do the crusaders it would seem.
 
Look at the atavistic way a lot of Europeans go when faced with a few murderous raids. I tend to think it's rather hard not to get very sectarian when confronted by the likes of IS massacring Shia or Assad randomly killing Sunni Arab civilians in even larger numbers. You can add on a wave of radical Salafi who aren't even tolerant of other more conventional Sunni Muslims and Iran V Saudi geopolitics infused with sectarian propaganda as well.

I noticed during the demonstrations in Idlib during the earlier CoH by supporters of moderate rebels protesting against AQ Syria that the banners suggested they were very anti-American as well. I'm sure that predates the revolt with Israel being an old enemy.

Many Iraqi Hashd groups are as well despite uncomfortably sharing IS as an enemy with The Great Satan. A majority of people in this region think IS is a deliberate US creation rather than the monstrous result of installing democracy in majority Shia Iraq. Oddly enough it's one belief that seems to unite Iraqis.

Then you have the Turks nearly getting into a shooting war with Russia over Syria but instantly blaming the Americans for the recent mutiny. The paranoid style in MENA politics is pretty much Trumpian.
 
On War On The Rocks A PLAN FOR WINDING DOWN THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR: SURGE, FREEZE, AND ENFORCE
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This policy proposal does not seek to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Instead, it seeks to constrain his freedom of military maneuver while sustaining his “strong-enough” negotiating position so as to ensure negotiations appear a viable consideration. In short, it would be an attempt to force negotiations, but not necessarily his immediate defeat or removal from power. That would become a decision for a broadly representative negotiation process, led by Syrians and guaranteed and protected by the international community. Within this hypothetical context, the Assad regime would be in a strong enough negotiating position, backed up by its respective backers, to not be negotiating its own total defeat, although some extent of transition would necessarily have to be included within an extended roadmap.
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Falling short of regime change as that's a hard sell but basically more of the same.

Reads the Turkish incursion as evidence that Russia will do little if threatened in Syria. I have it the other way round: the Turks having rather foolishly tussled with Russian air appear to have delayed a shallow intervention until nearly the last moment. They had to have assurances from Russia that all that vulnerable armour behind a thin screen of rebels would not be bombed. This despite having a major strategic problem as the PKK unrestrained by the US crossed the Euphrates and their red lines. Because a war with Russia is an absurd gamble for Ankara and Erdogan having blinked is no fool.

The Turks with their decades old PKK problem finally have very good reasons for being up on that tightrope we actually don't. We could easily win a war with Russia but risking one over who rules Damascus simply isn't worthwhile. It's not Kiev or even Tallinn. The Kremlin want Syria under the current management and after five years we've no remotely plausible replacement for the rotten Baathist state. They are right to point out much of the rebellion has grown too close to AQ. Syria is now just a larger version of the brutalised Russian provence of Chechnya in which our main interest is concluding a CT campaign while deconflicting with Russia not seeking to butt heads. They've made it their problem and may regret it. This is a similar position to that that neighbouring Israel and Jordan appear to have reached.
 
On TDB Syrian Rebels Taunt U.S. Troops
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The YPG is a wholly own subsidiary of the Democratic Union Party, the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, a blacklisted terrorist organization, according to the United States itself (which has chosen to ignore this awkward fact in the war against ISIS).

“There is unlimited [U.S.] support to the Kurds against the Arabs and Turkmen of Aleppo,” said Abu Faris.

Lately, the YPG militias have fought under the broader and supposedly more ethnically integrated banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, although Kurdish political predominance and numerical superiority within that outfit remains.

All of which makes Liwa al-Mutasim, one of the few Sunni Arab proxies of the United States, widely perceived by Syrian revolutionaries as the local equivalent of Uncle Toms. The brigade was recently made the subject of a death sentence fatwah by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. And long before that, it had a tempestuous relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense, as The Daily Beast has chronicled in detail.
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Suggests the incident at al Rai was choreographed by the Turks as intra-revolt agitprop which is pretty plausible. Has the Turks as hoping to finagle the US into partnering with them over Syrian Opposition coalition that'll push back both the PKK and IS. This does look like a pipe dream as the rebels have a pretty lousy record in fighting IS with the Pentagon having bet heavily on the PKK in Syria and not without some success despite the complications.
 

This is a very strange bit of State leaking. Kerry is candid and clearly torn. A good hearted liberal interventionist hawk facing a room full of needy rebels who feel betrayed.

At one point Kerry bemoans the fact that Congress won't support the use of force against Assad. He would but others in the administration oppose it. I assume the Oval Office and the Pentagon.

This is at bottom because the US voter polls as extremely sceptical of backing the rebels on both sides of the aisle. Only about a quarter of Dems support it and even fewer Republicans want the "USAF to be AQ's air force" as Talk Radio barks. The Russians are now in theatre and even Kerry is complaining about many rebel groups being huddled up tight with AQ. The influential Israelis aren't interested. Its mostly just Gulf lobbyists in DC's Arab Occupied Territory and unreliable all mouth and no trousers Europeans that are calling for greater US belligerence. An Arab fearing country that could be a few hanging chads away from banning Muslims from entering it in November lacks Kerry's globalised compassion.

Kerry states despairingly that escalation just leads to counter escalation by the R+6 and more slaughter. Well duh, the united beards of JaF charging down Idlib backed by TOWs just got you all that Russian air pounding East Aleppo.

The rebels, who took Raqqa and most of empty Eastern Syria from the regime and then lost it rapidly to IS, gripe that the US expects them to fight IS for Uncle Sam but won't give them a reach around and bomb Assad. Well it's the more successful rival revolutionaries of the PKK that fought IS. Attempts to get politically disorganised Sunni Arabs to do that in both Syria and Iraq have had only very limited success. When it has happened as in Idlib it's often rival radical Salafists that expelled IS. When the rebels do turn away from fighting the regime and fight radical Salafi as in Southern Syria support for the revolt tends to collapse and it falls to infighting. The half billion dollar attempt to create a anti-IS force out of Syrian rebels failed miserably. This does not look like a deal that the rebels can make good on without being handed Assad's head first.

Then Kerry offers them an election. The rebels have never liked that idea; it's an Iranian one from years ago. With the rebels so fragmented, lacking political organisation and actually not that popular in a lot of urban Syria the Baath despite the brutality probably remains the strongest single political actor in Syria. Assad may well be about as popular in Useful Syria as Donald Trump is the US. Even in a free and fair election the rebels might well fail to win convincingly: then what?

So Kerry says they need someone to get rid of Assad for them and who is that going to be? All eyes turn on Kerry: we thought three years ago you were going to do that. I think that may be a gentle hint that the game is up.
 
Really? How?
As I understand it things are rather reversed from the USSR days NATO or even the US alone does have massive conventional superiority. The Pentagon seems bullish about the outcome if none to willing to go there.

That's why the Russians introduced a couple of years ago a "deescalation" doctrine of escalating to use tactical nukes when they start to lose such a conflict. At which point according to war gaming there is fair chance city killing ICBMs start flying around. But our position seems to be that they are bluffing and they'll just look at the wreckage of their Desert Stormed armies and fold. Of course this bit is a high stakes gamble on the Kremlin's rationality but so was the Cold War.

The interventionist argument over Syria is all we (well the Americans) need to do is vigorously wave the big stick and bomb the end of a few runways. America has the military capability to stop Russia's rather Yemen like war in Syria and so is morally obliged to. And the fallback hope is any conflict with Russia would be containable, limited and rapidly over. They might even be right about that but the reward being a still chaotic Syria crawling with Salafi-Jihadis seems not worth even a slight risk of this going horribly wrong.
 
On SST Showdown in Aleppo

Bahzad points out the parallel with the approaching siege of the far larger population of IS ruled Mosul. Perhaps five times larger than that the R+6 are pounding in the East Aleppo pocket. Mosul will probably conducted with much more delicacy but these thing tend to be messy and it is still liable to be humanitarian disaster.

It had an IS presence in the shadows but Mosul like the rebel held East Aleppo also features a revolutionary Salafi influx from the rural areas and urban slums that's often seen as alien by the sophisticated urban folk that dwell there. A rising by outsiders that came much later than the more organic events in places like Fallujah or Homs. In both Aleppo and Mosul only a minority of local Islamists and others actively supported the rising. Many have ended up being trapped along side ultra-conservative peasants. Their hated government plus its allies will bomb them. In Aleppo the regime retained control of most of the city and seems to have a good deal of support. In Mosul IS while unpopular dominates and swallowed the entire city. There has been little resistance to oppressive IS rule. In East Aleppo there is a more diverse ecology of rebels that includes relatively moderate groups and AQ. In both places there's been reports of civilians being prevented from leaving by the insurgents.
 
On Informed Comment Syria: Russia warns of Mideast Apocalypse if US attacks al-Assad’s military
ABC News reports that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that a U.S. attack on the Syrian army “will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.” She maintained that if the regime were overthrown, it would create a vacuum within which “quickly filled” by “terrorists of all stripes.”

The incident a couple of weeks ago wherein the US military killed dozens of Syrian Arab Army troops, mistaking their base for an ISIL one, either spooked Putin or presented him with a pretext.

The Russians and the Syrian regime are all up on their high horses about what was likely friendly fire and a simple mistake.

Now they’re accusing the US of contemplating an attack on al-Assad himself. I don’t buy it.
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Juan Cole sternly accuses the Russians of getting shrill.

It does seem unlikely Obama in his Lame Duck would decide to whack Bashar but then the Russians suspect he's not really in control of the Pentagon and his cautious realism will be gone soon. Who can say what flighty, easily offended, neocon surrounded Trump or the hawkish blundering Clinton would order.
 

Well define "quagmire". All that's wrong with this prediction is once in up to their auxters the Russians would be as desperate for an extraction strategy as the US was in Iraq. As the article says Syria is a relatively cheap (about a billion bucks a year less than 2% of the defence budget) sustainable commitment but Russia is a relatively poor petro-state over spending on defence to the tune of 20% of the federal budget. It's also engaged in Ukraine and has taken on a considerable burden by grabbing Crimea.

As I recall UK operation in Iraq cost about $2 billion/year but out of a much larger economy. That had us eagerly looking for an exit. I'd also compare the costs of Obama's rather interventional "failure to act" in Syria. The Pentagon's failed Syrian rebel T&E program alone had a budget of half a billion.

Like Prince Mo's war in Yemen Syria was sold by Putin as a short decisive intervention. The Russians then had to add more air power to make any progress. They then declared victory and announced a withdrawal only to escalate their involvement. Progress has been slow coming to a tipping point over East Aleppo recently that really should have been passed this Spring. Neither intervention turned out as proclaimed. In fact the comparison with the heavily bombed Yemeni stalemate that does feature far more dramatic territorial gains for the regime side rather than the increments clawed back in Syria should be rather disturbing.

There's been clear signs of frustration between the Russians and the Iranians who have also escalated considerably. The Syrian state is rotten, its military corruptly ineffective, Assad appears an utterly unmanageable dead weight who shows no sign of compromise. It's unlikely he ever fully controls much of Eastern Syria again. And that makes Russian claims of beating back the terrorist menace as empty as those dusty spaces.

Syria was not without risks. The Russians came dangerously close to war with Turkey that they might not have won and have at least one American diplomat angrily hissing allegations of barbarism at them.

The Iranians had very clear interests in Syria as do HA. The Russians not so much but they do appear to be stuck in Syria in what's liable to be a long commitment. This only makes sense as part of a broader Russian pivot back into MENA as the US tries to disentangle itself after becoming far too involved.
 
As I understand it things are rather reversed from the USSR days NATO or even the US alone does have massive conventional superiority. The Pentagon seems bullish about the outcome if none to willing to go there.

That's why the Russians introduced a couple of years ago a "deescalation" doctrine of escalating to use tactical nukes when they start to lose such a conflict. At which point according to war gaming there is fair chance city killing ICBMs start flying around. But our position seems to be that they are bluffing and they'll just look at the wreckage of their Desert Stormed armies and fold. Of course this bit is a high stakes gamble on the Kremlin's rationality but so was the Cold War.

The interventionist argument over Syria is all we (well the Americans) need to do is vigorously wave the big stick and bomb the end of a few runways. America has the military capability to stop Russia's rather Yemen like war in Syria and so is morally obliged to. And the fallback hope is any conflict with Russia would be containable, limited and rapidly over. They might even be right about that but the reward being a still chaotic Syria crawling with Salafi-Jihadis seems not worth even a slight risk of this going horribly wrong.

You realise this is utter fucking insanity ? And that it's not Russian rationality that's the big worry here ?
And it's this insane outlook that's responsible for a lot of this blitzkrieg. Because certain facts have to be established on the ground no matter what the cost prior to a Clinton presidency, were this utter insanity will become policy .
 

Ignores that we are quietly backing the war in Yemen with arms supply, logistical support and diplomatic cover. That it's pretty comparable in terms of dead to the early Syrian Civil War and in danger of escalating just as Syria did. That the regime our GCC allies are attempting to restore is even less popular than Assad's and also pretty brutal. That Yemen's at risk of a massive famine. That's it's also an Arab Spring narrative playing out tragically.

Also misses that Yemen based AQAP has been rated as the most technically capable AQ affiliate with a clear agenda of carrying out spectacular attacks in The West. The campaign against it not so long ago was trumpeted as flagship Obama success. It has clearly been enabled by the collapse of Yemen into chaotic civil war and until recently was treated more as a tactical asset than a problem by the GCC coalition. In fact AQAP's so important it is liable to become the mothership node of AQ. And AQ now looks likely to outlast IS as a terrorist threat.

I'm afraid there's a willed looking away from Yemen because if examined it does rather undermine our claims of moral superiority. Worse we appear easily bought and complicit in actions that serve hard lobbied for GCC interests but not our own.
 

Well define "quagmire". All that's wrong with this prediction is once in up to their auxters the Russians would be as desperate for an extraction strategy as the US was in Iraq. As the article says Syria is a relatively cheap (about a billion bucks a year less than 2% of the defence budget) sustainable commitment but Russia is a relatively poor petro-state over spending on defence to the tune of 20% of the federal budget. It's also engaged in Ukraine and has taken on a considerable burden by grabbing Crimea.

As I recall UK operation in Iraq cost about $2 billion/year but out of a much larger economy. That had us eagerly looking for an exit. I'd also compare the costs of Obama's rather interventional "failure to act" in Syria. The Pentagon's failed Syrian rebel T&E program alone had a budget of half a billion.

Like Prince Mo's war in Yemen Syria was sold by Putin as a short decisive intervention. The Russians then had to add more air power to make any progress. They then declared victory and announced a withdrawal only to escalate their involvement. Progress has been slow coming to a tipping point over East Aleppo recently that really should have been passed this Spring. Neither intervention turned out as proclaimed. In fact the comparison with the heavily bombed Yemeni stalemate that does feature far more dramatic territorial gains for the regime side rather than the increments clawed back in Syria should be rather disturbing.

There's been clear signs of frustration between the Russians and the Iranians who have also escalated considerably. The Syrian state is rotten, its military corruptly ineffective, Assad appears an utterly unmanageable dead weight who shows no sign of compromise. It's unlikely he ever fully controls much of Eastern Syria again. And that makes Russian claims of beating back the terrorist menace as empty as those dusty spaces.

Syria was not without risks. The Russians came dangerously close to war with Turkey that they might not have won and have at least one American diplomat angrily hissing allegations of barbarism at them.

The Iranians had very clear interests in Syria as do HA. The Russians not so much but they do appear to be stuck in Syria in what's liable to be a long commitment. This only makes sense as part of a broader Russian pivot back into MENA as the US tries to disentangle itself after becoming far too involved.


This is costing the Russians virtually nothing as the expenditure is being taken directly from the training budget . Stockpiled ordnance is simply being dropped on jihadis in Syria rather than wooden targets in a Russian field and the live fire experience gained is invaluable . The vast majority of the stuff being dropped is cheap unguided munitions that were produced during the soviet era and stockpiled in huge quantities . Absolutely no shortage of it . The fuel to get it there costs them nothing either .
Once Allepo is secured ...and thats a certainty because theyre beseiged, have shot their bolt already and defences they spent years preparing are collapsing like dominos as we speak...there'll be a huge Syrian military force freed up to go on the offensive wherever it likes . Same with the besieged Eastern ghouta were huge numbers of Republican guard and Special forces are currently tied up . The outcomes of both sieges are certain government victory . They've those areas firmly locked down . There's no break out possible, no cavalry, no relief . After the failed attempt to lift the Allepo siege that was months in planning and preparation we now have major jihadi groups trading bitter accusations . With one even referring to the fate of their relief force as " a holocaust " .
And to add to jihadi woes as soon as Mosul is taken, which it will be, there'll also be a massive influx of Iraqi militias into Syria. Huge numbers . The manpower and firepower necessary to liquidate every last jihadi occupied position won't be a problem . Assads calculations are sound in that regard . He can take every inch back . Damascus is secure, Allepo is finally secure, latakias secure . He can do it . Methodically and slowly but it can be done . He has no obligation to capitulate to western and gulf demands whatsoever . The Syrian people would lynch him if he did after all the sacrifices they made to hold out this long .
 
In The National Different strategies needed to win against ISIL in Syria and Iraq
The fight against ISIL is approaching a new milestone with Syrian rebels backed by Turkey and the United States-led coalition closing in on Dabiq, a town in rural Aleppo, which is central to the group’s propaganda.

The battle to liberate the town is expected to begin this week. Dabiq’s takeover would not just serve as a symbolic blow to the group’s core claims, but it would be a fitting win before the major battles to retake Mosul and Raqqa, ISIL’s two capitals in Iraq and Syria.

The battle to retake the areas the group controlled in Syria in 2014 is still in its early stages, unlike the one in Iraq, where the extremist group has lost more than 50 per cent of its territory. So, Washington’s next moves will shape the direction of the battle in Syria, where only 25 per cent of ISIL-controlled areas have been liberated.

The Syrian battle is further complicated by theabsence of a central government with which the US can coordinate. The lack of a friendly government partner also means that one ISIL-controlled province, namely Deir Ezzor, will require special treatment because of the regime’s presence there. Sources say that the US has even shelved any plan for an offensive in Deir Ezzor altogether as a result, especially after the erroneous strike on regime soldiers there on September 17.
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So whatever CENTCOM was up to in Deir bombing suspiciously close to regime positions is over.

Suggests that the reason the Turks can only raise a pitiful screen of rebels to fight IS is lack of the sort of US backing that the PKK get for their political project of governance in which Arab interests are subsumed into a Kurdish project.

I think US backing the PKK in Syria involves rather a lot of tactical looking away from the group's agenda. It was done reluctantly and always had a glaring central deceit: that rebel and PKK agendas were compatible. Not wanting to look too closely at rebel attitudes has also featured.

The PKK's revolutionary project is at odds with the Arabist wider revolt that is in some ways a revanche against minority rule. It's also an existential threat to Turkey's geographic integrity. Arab rebels being a beard for PKK ambitions in the SDF is an affront. They are seen as Uncle Toms an inch away from fighting for the regime. The Turks have pressed for the SDFs Arabs to be integrated into their rebels before. US policy is really about short term gains and necessarily politically incoherent here. While encouraging the PKK to implement inclusive governance is prudent. Supporting an alternative governance agenda which is essentially Arabist in areas where the PKK might be used is probably impractical.

This Turkish agenda here is more about splitting the US away from the PKK that fighting IS. IS for the Turks is a secondary problem just as it is the R+6 and most rebels. Some SDF groups might well come over to the Turks as they are clearly not so happy with their marginal position in the SDF. Some have older alliances with Syrian Kurds. Some simply took refuge from IS under the PKK's wing. Some of the groups fighting with the SDF are there because they have bad blood with the Turkish aligned rebel factions.

This all just a symptom of the fundamental problem: lack of rebel unity. The only wide area of agreement within the rebellion is opposition to the brutal Baathist regime. IS is a distraction from the cause and for some a worrying case of fitna. There's probably more enthusiasm to fight the PKK which is ideologically repugnant to reactionary Salafi and often seen as regime aligned amongst the rebels. In fact the Turks efforts to thwart the PKK using Arab and Turkmen rebels not so much to fight IS as occupy areas they've been displaced from are obviously draining resources from Idlib and East Aleppo at a crucial time. At least one rebel group has said as much and gone back to revolting. AQ Syria in decrying rebel groups fighting for the Turks East of Aleppo have a point.
 
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