LETHALFORCE
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Russian involvement in Syrian crisis
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LETHALFORCE
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US scraps scheme to create Syrian rebel force
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/76ad076e-6e75-11e5-8171-ba1968cf791a.html#axzz3o7bllJTy
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/76ad076e-6e75-11e5-8171-ba1968cf791a.html#axzz3o7bllJTy
LETHALFORCE
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Russia's Low-Risk Gambit in Syria
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday that four Russian cruise missiles fell in Iran rather than in Syria. To Carter, the errant munitions reflect Russia's "unprofessional behavior." To the Russians, they may be part of the reason they are in Syria in the first place.
Strategically, Russia's involvement in the Syrian war looks like a terrible idea, or at least a big gamble. "Doubling down" on President Bashar al-Assad, as Carter put it, could give the Syrian strongman some breathing space, but not necessarily a lease on life. At the same time, Russia is alienating Turkey, where President Vladimir Putin until recently had a comfortable partner in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It also threatens to make enemies in the Sunni Arab world just when relations with Saudi Arabia seemed to be improving.
What happens if the land offensive started by Assad's forces Wednesday with help from Iranian troops and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fails to recapture lost territory? Does Russia have a specific goal or at least a time frame? What about an exit strategy?
These questions matter only if Russia is in this for the long haul. It has done nothing to suggest that it is, however. The Kremlin only appears to be setting short-term tactical goals for now because it's not heavily committed to an outcome in Syria. One of these objectives is to battle-test and show off new hardware.
Although the U.S. has been involved in several foreign wars since 1991, Russia has only fought on its own territory or within the former Soviet Union. These conflicts provided limited opportunities for a modern army to show what it can do: They consisted of either large-scale police operations or covert, hybrid warfare. Fighting small, agile bands of Chechen guerrillas in the mountains, helping separatist rebels surround Ukrainian units or running through overconfident but tiny Georgia in just four days is no general's dream. It also is no way to demonstrate new weaponry to potential foreign buyers or test it for Russia's own armed forces.
It might seem absurd to get involved in a war as a training exercise, but in Putin's Russia, it could make some sense. The country's defense spending has risen to about 4.5 percent of gross domestic product this year from just 1.5 percent in 2010, and Russia now has one of the world's 10 most militarized economies. It is also the second-biggest arms exporter, with 27 percent of the global market. Last year, it exported $15.5 billion worth of weaponry; that was about 5 percent of its non-commodity exports and 2.6 percent of the total.
The Caliber 3M14 missiles launched toward Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday couldn't have been tested under battle conditions previously because international treaties only allow the export of a modified version with a 300 kilometer (186 mile) range, which Russia has sold to India and China. But the 26 missiles fired at against Syrian targets were long-range, capable of doing damage at 1,500 kilometers and beyond. If four of the 3M14's fell in Iran -- though Russia has denied this and Iran has not confirmed -- that wouldn't be unusual for the first battle use of a new weapon.
Even though Russia has exported its Su-30 fighter jets to a dozen countries, it has never used them under battle conditions. Now, there's a chance to test four of the aircraft. The state-of-the-art Su-34 fighter-bombers were used in a limited way during the Georgia campaign, but they, too, are getting extensively tested in a real war for the first time. Russia has sent six to Syria.
One benefit of the real-life "exercises" is that it makes for impressive video and powerful domestic propaganda.
As things stand, Putin is getting these benefits without risking much. According to Western estimates, he has about 2,000 troops in Syria and a few dozen aircraft. The 2008 operation in Georgia involved about 9,000 crack troops and hundreds of tanks. At the current scale, the Syrian operation is not much more than an exercise.
So far, Putin's commitment, along with the military, financial and domestic political risk, is minimal. Things may get serious if Assad's ground operation sputters, which is likely. Then Putin will face a choice between really doubling down and sending ground troops and telling Assad that he could do no more and that it was time to negotiate a power transition.
Putin has proved to be a risk taker in Ukraine, and he will be tempted to take the first path. His generals and defense industry managers will be pushing him in that direction: There are plenty more weapons to test and crack troops to try in battle. The risk of a lengthy conflict, casualties and diplomatic losses in the Middle East would, however, be considerably higher than it is now. By comparison, the second path would be painless: Russia would have brought Assad to the negotiating table and helped end the war, which could be sold as a victory both domestically and internationally.
At this point, the Russian leader's options are open. I doubt he has a long-term plan or thinks he needs an exit strategy. That won't last. Soon, almost certainly before the end of this year, Putin will need to decide whether to commit himself or end the game.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-09/russia-s-low-risk-gambit-in-syria
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday that four Russian cruise missiles fell in Iran rather than in Syria. To Carter, the errant munitions reflect Russia's "unprofessional behavior." To the Russians, they may be part of the reason they are in Syria in the first place.
Strategically, Russia's involvement in the Syrian war looks like a terrible idea, or at least a big gamble. "Doubling down" on President Bashar al-Assad, as Carter put it, could give the Syrian strongman some breathing space, but not necessarily a lease on life. At the same time, Russia is alienating Turkey, where President Vladimir Putin until recently had a comfortable partner in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It also threatens to make enemies in the Sunni Arab world just when relations with Saudi Arabia seemed to be improving.
What happens if the land offensive started by Assad's forces Wednesday with help from Iranian troops and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fails to recapture lost territory? Does Russia have a specific goal or at least a time frame? What about an exit strategy?
These questions matter only if Russia is in this for the long haul. It has done nothing to suggest that it is, however. The Kremlin only appears to be setting short-term tactical goals for now because it's not heavily committed to an outcome in Syria. One of these objectives is to battle-test and show off new hardware.
Although the U.S. has been involved in several foreign wars since 1991, Russia has only fought on its own territory or within the former Soviet Union. These conflicts provided limited opportunities for a modern army to show what it can do: They consisted of either large-scale police operations or covert, hybrid warfare. Fighting small, agile bands of Chechen guerrillas in the mountains, helping separatist rebels surround Ukrainian units or running through overconfident but tiny Georgia in just four days is no general's dream. It also is no way to demonstrate new weaponry to potential foreign buyers or test it for Russia's own armed forces.
It might seem absurd to get involved in a war as a training exercise, but in Putin's Russia, it could make some sense. The country's defense spending has risen to about 4.5 percent of gross domestic product this year from just 1.5 percent in 2010, and Russia now has one of the world's 10 most militarized economies. It is also the second-biggest arms exporter, with 27 percent of the global market. Last year, it exported $15.5 billion worth of weaponry; that was about 5 percent of its non-commodity exports and 2.6 percent of the total.
The Caliber 3M14 missiles launched toward Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday couldn't have been tested under battle conditions previously because international treaties only allow the export of a modified version with a 300 kilometer (186 mile) range, which Russia has sold to India and China. But the 26 missiles fired at against Syrian targets were long-range, capable of doing damage at 1,500 kilometers and beyond. If four of the 3M14's fell in Iran -- though Russia has denied this and Iran has not confirmed -- that wouldn't be unusual for the first battle use of a new weapon.
Even though Russia has exported its Su-30 fighter jets to a dozen countries, it has never used them under battle conditions. Now, there's a chance to test four of the aircraft. The state-of-the-art Su-34 fighter-bombers were used in a limited way during the Georgia campaign, but they, too, are getting extensively tested in a real war for the first time. Russia has sent six to Syria.
One benefit of the real-life "exercises" is that it makes for impressive video and powerful domestic propaganda.
As things stand, Putin is getting these benefits without risking much. According to Western estimates, he has about 2,000 troops in Syria and a few dozen aircraft. The 2008 operation in Georgia involved about 9,000 crack troops and hundreds of tanks. At the current scale, the Syrian operation is not much more than an exercise.
So far, Putin's commitment, along with the military, financial and domestic political risk, is minimal. Things may get serious if Assad's ground operation sputters, which is likely. Then Putin will face a choice between really doubling down and sending ground troops and telling Assad that he could do no more and that it was time to negotiate a power transition.
Putin has proved to be a risk taker in Ukraine, and he will be tempted to take the first path. His generals and defense industry managers will be pushing him in that direction: There are plenty more weapons to test and crack troops to try in battle. The risk of a lengthy conflict, casualties and diplomatic losses in the Middle East would, however, be considerably higher than it is now. By comparison, the second path would be painless: Russia would have brought Assad to the negotiating table and helped end the war, which could be sold as a victory both domestically and internationally.
At this point, the Russian leader's options are open. I doubt he has a long-term plan or thinks he needs an exit strategy. That won't last. Soon, almost certainly before the end of this year, Putin will need to decide whether to commit himself or end the game.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-09/russia-s-low-risk-gambit-in-syria
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looks like fake ... not a good source, and there is no confirmation of Helicopter shoot down incidents
.................................................................
pmaitra
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Syrian helicopters have been shot down in the past four years by the terrorists. This picture could be true, probably not recent, but I am sure this is not a plane.
Zebra
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check it ...............................................https : // twitter (dot) com/osmansarot1/status/652586160095629312
If Russia really wants to win against ISIS, then first they have to stop ISIS getting new weapons.
pmaitra
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Where are you getting these Tweets from?check it ...............................................https//) twitter (dot) com/osmansarot1/status/652586160095629312
If Russia really wants to win against ISIS, then first they have to stop ISIS getting new weapons.
Zebra
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pmaitra
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Thanks. Good pictures and Tweets, but then Tweets ought to be verified. I will post some Tweets from there:
Zebra
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That helicopter was in Aleppo (Syria) or Kunduz (Afghanistan)......!.....?
pmaitra
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The Message From The Russian Home Lake (Caspian Sea)
We have seen some impressive display of Russian military might in the last couple of days. Contrary to all expectations by the Western intelligence, Russia escalated its military campaign in Syria from the Caspian Sea.
Mihajlo Doknić | Russia Insider
We have seen some impressive display of Russian military might in the last couple of days. Contrary to all expectations by the Western intelligence, Russia escalated its military campaign in Syria from the Caspian Sea.
The western intelligence and military experts expected Russia to intensify its bombing campaign in Syria from the sea, however, from the eastern Mediterranean though. The surprise came on October 7, when Russian naval forces launched a missile attack on IS targets from its naval ships in the Caspian Sea.
The pictures were impressive, the precision was impressive, the surprise was great and it certainly impressed everyone in the West. Most western media preferred not cover it at all or gave it very little attention.
Now, no one thinks that 26 missiles fired from the Caspian sea will have a decisive impact on the Russian military campaign in Syria. However, it was a message to those who not only claim that Russia is a regional power but also behave towards Russia as if it was a regional power.
The display of the military might from the Caspian Sea was just a reminder to the US that Russia doesn’t really need Super Aircraft Carriers to project military power in the region. It can do so from its ‘home lake.’
According to military experts the western radar systems either didn’t detect the missiles at all or they did, however, very very late. This is insofar remarkable since the missiles had to pass an area where NATO and the US have been deploying powerful radar and surveillance systems for some years now: Iran that has been under intense US ‘observation’ in the last two decades, Iraq, where the US and UK still have military bases and there is Turkey a NATO member that has been controlling Syria’s air space for the last four years.
The message from the Caspian Sea to Russia’s Western partners is clear:
We have seen some impressive display of Russian military might in the last couple of days. Contrary to all expectations by the Western intelligence, Russia escalated its military campaign in Syria from the Caspian Sea.
Mihajlo Doknić | Russia Insider
We have seen some impressive display of Russian military might in the last couple of days. Contrary to all expectations by the Western intelligence, Russia escalated its military campaign in Syria from the Caspian Sea.
The western intelligence and military experts expected Russia to intensify its bombing campaign in Syria from the sea, however, from the eastern Mediterranean though. The surprise came on October 7, when Russian naval forces launched a missile attack on IS targets from its naval ships in the Caspian Sea.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” –Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The pictures were impressive, the precision was impressive, the surprise was great and it certainly impressed everyone in the West. Most western media preferred not cover it at all or gave it very little attention.
Now, no one thinks that 26 missiles fired from the Caspian sea will have a decisive impact on the Russian military campaign in Syria. However, it was a message to those who not only claim that Russia is a regional power but also behave towards Russia as if it was a regional power.
The display of the military might from the Caspian Sea was just a reminder to the US that Russia doesn’t really need Super Aircraft Carriers to project military power in the region. It can do so from its ‘home lake.’
According to military experts the western radar systems either didn’t detect the missiles at all or they did, however, very very late. This is insofar remarkable since the missiles had to pass an area where NATO and the US have been deploying powerful radar and surveillance systems for some years now: Iran that has been under intense US ‘observation’ in the last two decades, Iraq, where the US and UK still have military bases and there is Turkey a NATO member that has been controlling Syria’s air space for the last four years.
The message from the Caspian Sea to Russia’s Western partners is clear:
- Russia is capable and willing to project military power in the region
- Russia can and will defend its forces deployed in Syria
- Russia may be a ‘regional power’ but it is one that sits on 15% of world’s land mass and it can project military power from within its borders in order to protect its interests in the world
- Western partners need from now on to consider Russian interests when trying to solve international issues
pmaitra
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Like It Or Not, Russia Must Be Taken Seriously
It’s a powerful independent actor, ignore or dismiss at your own peril
Kenneth Rapoza | (Forbes) | Russia Insider
Originally appeared at Forbes
Oh, the poor Russians, snarls Vaira Vike Frieberga, ex-president of Latvia. “Why should we worry about their need to feel respected? What about our needs to feel respected!”
And the crowd goes wild.
This, of course, was a crowd of Ukrainians and at least one State Department official — Victoria Nuland to be exact — at the 2015 Russia hate-fest known as the Yalta European Strategy conference. It wasn’t always so anti-Russian, but this year trash-talking Russia was a crowd pleaser.
Frieberga was responding to a French politician (whose name escapes me) that said Ukraine and the West should recognize that Russia has geopolitical ambitions and those goals need to be considered when dealing with “the Kremlin.”
Oh, boo hoo was the general consensus in Kyiv. What Frieberga and the beleaguered, unpopular leaders of Ukraine forget is that Russia actually has more say in world affairs than they do. The West will listen to Russia, or Russia will do what it wants and ignore them. Such is the case with Russia’s involvement in the Syria fiasco. Fear it. Hate it. Russia has to be taken seriously, like it or not. September 2015 marks the month that Russia was taken seriously again.
In fact, president Vladimir Putin scored a veritable hat trick in September. The result will likely be the ending of the Ukraine-inspired sanctions regime that has packed a wallop on the Russian economy and made Moscow the den of the evil “bear in the woods” once again.
Putin shoots. He scores!
Leaning East? Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, left, and Francois Hollande, France’s president, laugh during a news conference at Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015. Merkel and Hollande want Ukraine to hold elections in east Ukraine, even if the outcome will be better for Moscow than for Kyiv.
The Sept. 29 interview with Charlie Rose; the United Nations General Assembly speech about fighting terrorism in Syria; and Germany and France now leaning more towards Russia on the Ukraine issue all suggest Russia has turned the corner. Putin has been heard out. He suddenly looks…good.
What’s changed?
On Oct. 2, Putin, Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko met to discuss a plan by French diplomat Pierre Morel to hold local elections within three months in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. Elections have been postponed by the pro-Russian separatists. And Ukraine’s leaders in Kyiv are not too keen on having them in the first place.
“These people don’t know what fair and free elections are,” says Poroshenko.
That doesn’t matter. Germany and France want elections. If Ukraine wants to become European, this is what Europeans do. They vote. Poroshenko will just have to deal with the fall out, as Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky wrote on Oct. 5.
Elections are also part of the Minsk II agreement. If that agreement is met, and the majority ethnic Russians vote (most likely against the ruling party in Kyiv), then it is likely the Russian-backed rebel fighting will end. If there are no elections, and Kyiv stalls on this front, then it will be harder to paint Putin as villain as rebels will be seen demanding a vote. For some, this is becoming the base case scenario.
For Washington, Russia’s standing down of its support of rebels in east Ukraine, and its bombing of ISIS and CIA backed anti-Assad rebels in Syria are nothing more than a charm offensive. Perhaps. How far of a stretch is it, truly, for Americans to stop and compare the anti-Assad forces with the old mujahideen in Afghanistan? That was another proxy army fighting a government Washington didn’t like. Those guys later turned around and took a chunk out of the Pentagon and changed the skyline of New York. For now, Americans still view Putin as an unfriendly neighbor, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
[. . .]
For Germany and France, Ukraine isn’t sticking to Minsk. Voting in Donetsk and Luhansk isn’t like the voting that took place in Crimea in 2014, where an autonomous region voted (or not?) to secede. The voting this time would be sanctioned from Kyiv. With or without the watchful eye of foreign election monitors, the turnout will not be positive for Poroshenko politics, but it will keep the country intact and — in theory — should end the bloodshed in what was once the industrial heartbeat of Ukraine, a country now on life support.
The Ukrainian government has tried hard to stoke Europe’s fears of Russian encroachment. Hardly a day goes by when the news flow is not about a Russian tank on some ex-Soviet state’s border. Or some ex-Soviet state, remembering the bad old days, is reportedly off on a NATO training mission in the Baltics. None of this has looked good for Russia. But as Putin pointed out to Charlie Rose, none of this is illegal either. NATO does it too. So what?
Like the original Yalta conference post-World War II, the world political map is still divided between the West…and the Russians. Putin has spoken for Russia – at the U.N., on American television – and the West can either listen or choose to ignore him. We all know the outcome if we choose to ignore.
It’s a powerful independent actor, ignore or dismiss at your own peril
Kenneth Rapoza | (Forbes) | Russia Insider
Originally appeared at Forbes
Oh, the poor Russians, snarls Vaira Vike Frieberga, ex-president of Latvia. “Why should we worry about their need to feel respected? What about our needs to feel respected!”
And the crowd goes wild.
This, of course, was a crowd of Ukrainians and at least one State Department official — Victoria Nuland to be exact — at the 2015 Russia hate-fest known as the Yalta European Strategy conference. It wasn’t always so anti-Russian, but this year trash-talking Russia was a crowd pleaser.
Frieberga was responding to a French politician (whose name escapes me) that said Ukraine and the West should recognize that Russia has geopolitical ambitions and those goals need to be considered when dealing with “the Kremlin.”
Oh, boo hoo was the general consensus in Kyiv. What Frieberga and the beleaguered, unpopular leaders of Ukraine forget is that Russia actually has more say in world affairs than they do. The West will listen to Russia, or Russia will do what it wants and ignore them. Such is the case with Russia’s involvement in the Syria fiasco. Fear it. Hate it. Russia has to be taken seriously, like it or not. September 2015 marks the month that Russia was taken seriously again.
In fact, president Vladimir Putin scored a veritable hat trick in September. The result will likely be the ending of the Ukraine-inspired sanctions regime that has packed a wallop on the Russian economy and made Moscow the den of the evil “bear in the woods” once again.
Putin shoots. He scores!
Leaning East? Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, left, and Francois Hollande, France’s president, laugh during a news conference at Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015. Merkel and Hollande want Ukraine to hold elections in east Ukraine, even if the outcome will be better for Moscow than for Kyiv.
The Sept. 29 interview with Charlie Rose; the United Nations General Assembly speech about fighting terrorism in Syria; and Germany and France now leaning more towards Russia on the Ukraine issue all suggest Russia has turned the corner. Putin has been heard out. He suddenly looks…good.
What’s changed?
On Oct. 2, Putin, Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko met to discuss a plan by French diplomat Pierre Morel to hold local elections within three months in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. Elections have been postponed by the pro-Russian separatists. And Ukraine’s leaders in Kyiv are not too keen on having them in the first place.
“These people don’t know what fair and free elections are,” says Poroshenko.
That doesn’t matter. Germany and France want elections. If Ukraine wants to become European, this is what Europeans do. They vote. Poroshenko will just have to deal with the fall out, as Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky wrote on Oct. 5.
Elections are also part of the Minsk II agreement. If that agreement is met, and the majority ethnic Russians vote (most likely against the ruling party in Kyiv), then it is likely the Russian-backed rebel fighting will end. If there are no elections, and Kyiv stalls on this front, then it will be harder to paint Putin as villain as rebels will be seen demanding a vote. For some, this is becoming the base case scenario.
For Washington, Russia’s standing down of its support of rebels in east Ukraine, and its bombing of ISIS and CIA backed anti-Assad rebels in Syria are nothing more than a charm offensive. Perhaps. How far of a stretch is it, truly, for Americans to stop and compare the anti-Assad forces with the old mujahideen in Afghanistan? That was another proxy army fighting a government Washington didn’t like. Those guys later turned around and took a chunk out of the Pentagon and changed the skyline of New York. For now, Americans still view Putin as an unfriendly neighbor, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
[. . .]
For Germany and France, Ukraine isn’t sticking to Minsk. Voting in Donetsk and Luhansk isn’t like the voting that took place in Crimea in 2014, where an autonomous region voted (or not?) to secede. The voting this time would be sanctioned from Kyiv. With or without the watchful eye of foreign election monitors, the turnout will not be positive for Poroshenko politics, but it will keep the country intact and — in theory — should end the bloodshed in what was once the industrial heartbeat of Ukraine, a country now on life support.
The Ukrainian government has tried hard to stoke Europe’s fears of Russian encroachment. Hardly a day goes by when the news flow is not about a Russian tank on some ex-Soviet state’s border. Or some ex-Soviet state, remembering the bad old days, is reportedly off on a NATO training mission in the Baltics. None of this has looked good for Russia. But as Putin pointed out to Charlie Rose, none of this is illegal either. NATO does it too. So what?
Like the original Yalta conference post-World War II, the world political map is still divided between the West…and the Russians. Putin has spoken for Russia – at the U.N., on American television – and the West can either listen or choose to ignore him. We all know the outcome if we choose to ignore.
pmaitra
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US Congresswoman: Russia Is Bombing Al-Qaeda Terrorists. How Is That a Bad Thing?
A smart woman schools MSNBCS’ talking moron. Superbly argued
Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) | (MSNBC) | Russia Insider
_________________________________________________________
Commentary: After 9/11, it would be insulting the average Americans’ intelligence to pretend that Americans will still support arming the al-Qaida affiliated and/or ISIS terrorists, just to get rid of al-Assad.
A smart woman schools MSNBCS’ talking moron. Superbly argued
Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) | (MSNBC) | Russia Insider
_________________________________________________________
Commentary: After 9/11, it would be insulting the average Americans’ intelligence to pretend that Americans will still support arming the al-Qaida affiliated and/or ISIS terrorists, just to get rid of al-Assad.
pmaitra
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How Putin Outwitted the West
His Syrian intervention has highlighted the west’s confusion, indecision and lack of common sense
Owen Matthews | (The Spectator) | Russia Insider
This article originally appeared at The Spectator
Russia was right about Iraq and Libya, and America and Britain were dead wrong. Regime change doesn’t seem to have changed Middle Eastern countries for the better, as Vladimir Putin has been warning for years. His policy is not to support any armed groups ‘that attempt to resolve internal problems through force’ — by which he means rebels, ‘moderate’ or otherwise. In his words, the Kremlin always has ‘a nasty feeling that if such armed groups get support from abroad, the situation can end up deadlocked. We never know the true goals of these “freedom fighters” and we are concerned that the region could descend into chaos.’
Yet after a decade and a half of scolding the West for non-UN-sanctioned military interventions, Putin has now unilaterally committed Russian forces to what the former CIA director General David Petraeus calls the ‘geopolitical Chernobyl’ of Syria. Russia finds itself allied with Syria, Iraq and Iran — a new ‘coalition’ no less, as Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad described it on Iranian state TV last week. How and why did Putin fail to take his own advice about the unintended consequences that breed in middle-eastern quagmires? And most importantly, how has he managed — so far at least — to make Russia’s intervention in Syria into something close to a diplomatic triumph?
Russia’s decisive intervention has left Barack Obama and David Cameron looking weak and confused. When the usually steadfastly patriotic readers of the New York Daily News were asked whether Putin or Obama had ‘the stronger arguments’, 96 per cent said Putin. In Britain even hawks like Sir Max Hastings — no friend of the Kremlin — are arguing that Russia can help beat Isis. And most importantly, Putin stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly last month with an impassioned speech denouncing the whole US-backed project of democracy in the Middle East at its very root.
The Arab Spring has been a catastrophe, Putin argued, and the western countries who encouraged Arab democrats to rise against their corrupt old rulers opened a Pandora’s box of troubles. ‘Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster,’ he told assembled delegates, in remarks aimed squarely at the White House. ‘Nobody cares about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced this situation, do you realise what you have done?’ It was quite a sight: a Russian president taking the moral high ground against an American president — and getting away with it.
It’s a message that encapsulates Putin’s world-view. Stability and predictability are better than the uncertainties of democracy and revolution — that’s been the Kremlin’s line ever since a wave of ‘colour’ revolutions swept away Putin’s allies across the former Soviet bloc. When the Arab Spring obliterated Russian buddies Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, he had just the same idea. The Assad family — allies that Putin inherited from the days of Leonid Brezhnev — are simply the last of Moscow’s allies left standing in a world turned upside down by people power and its unpredictable consequences. In backing Assad, Putin is pushing back not just against the West and its support for democracy, but against the whole idea of popular revolt against authority.
Putin has emerged from his Syria gamble looking decisive because he at least knows who his allies are — and, no less importantly, who his enemies are. The US and UK, on the other hand, are against almost every major group fighting in Syria. The West opposes not just Assad and his allies (in the form of Lebanese Hezbollah forces and Iranian Revolutionary Guards) but almost every one of his opponents, in the form of Islamic State, the al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. True, there are a handful of moderate Syrian Sunni opposition groups which have received arms and training from the CIA. In Washington, you still hear fantasies of an ‘apolitical, nonsectarian and highly integrated’ new Syrian opposition army being sent forth to hold territory against both Assad and the jihadis, creating an inclusive government for all. Just this week David Cameron said he wanted Assad out because he would not be accepted by all Syrians. It is as if he still thinks straightforward regime change is possible. That kind of strategy might have sounded good in 2001 — but it’s hard to swallow after the utter collapse of US-trained local forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
In Syria the most effective US-backed, anti-Isis troops on the ground are the Kurdish rebels of the YPG — but the US has been powerless to stop its Nato ally Turkey from bombing the YPG in retaliation for a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey that has little to do with the Syrian civil war. Nor has the US been able to protect two of the Syrian Sunni opposition groups that it backs from Moscow’s airstrikes — Russian jets have already hit the front-line positions of Tajammu al-Aaza in Talbiseh and Jaish al-Tawhid (part of the Free Syrian Army) on the outskirts of Al-Lataminah. ‘On day one, you can say it was a one-time mistake,’ a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal after an allied rebel group’s headquarters was destroyed. ‘But on day three and day four, there’s no question it’s intentional. They know what they’re hitting.’ Protests by London and Washington have been politely ignored by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who speaks of ‘fighting terrorism together.’
But it’s precisely because Putin has been proved right about the dangers of intervention that his own adventure in Syria is likely to end badly. For one, it’s a myth that Assad is the main bulwark against Isis in Syria. According to figures from IHS Jane’s, only 6 per cent of the Syrian regime army’s 982 operations last year were actually directed against Isis. Most of Assad’s attacks — including with Scud missiles and the infamous barrel bombs dropped from helicopters on residential areas — targeted groups that opposed Isis, thereby helping pave the way for Isis to take over Raqqa and the oilfields of northern Syria.
And as Nato found out in Libya, air campaigns can produce unpredictable results. Even with hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground, as the coalition had in Iraq, US commander David Petraeus found that ‘you can’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency.’
The Russian operation in Syria is minuscule compared to the vast bases like Camp Victory that Halliburton built for the US military in Iraq, which looked like major airports and boasted full-scale food courts, shopping malls and acres of air-conditioned accommodation. Reports so far show a shipshape but tiny Russian operation, complete with a field bakery, a portable laundry and a single squadron of aircraft as well as some combat helicopters.
With this relatively small military force, Putin has achieved remarkable diplomatic leverage — and halted any renewed western attempts to depose Assad. But even the Kremlin cannot believe that Russian air power alone can deliver Assad victory. One senior British diplomat in the region expects the Russian airstrikes to be followed up with an Iranian-led ground offensive — possibly led by Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani, who visited Moscow earlier this summer. ‘That puts Russian-backed guys in the field into hostile contact with US-backed guys,’ says the diplomat. ‘That’s what we used to call a proxy war.’
There is also dangerous potential for direct escalation — deliberate or accidental — with Nato too. Russian and Nato planes could be flying in the same skies against different targets with no co-ordinated traffic control. Already a Russian jet has been intercepted by Turkish Air Force F-16s after allegedly violating Turkish (i.e. Nato) airspace. If Cameron calls for airstrikes on Syria — and the body language from Westminster suggests that a parliamentary vote is in prospect — then this should give his MPs pause. Why send the RAF into this mess, and risk entanglement with Russia and a far wider conflagration?
Putin’s intervention has certainly cast Assad a lifeline. Russian TV regularly shows images of happy Syrians watching Putin on the television with rapt attention, or waving Russian flags. But it may end up prolonging the war, since the Russian deployment has put paid to western plans for a no-fly zone to protect civilians in built-up areas. Assad will doubtless now attempt the impossible — recapturing the 80 per cent of Syria that he has lost since the beginning of the insurgency that has cost 220,000 lives so far. So Russia’s intervention may, ironically, end up strengthening the hand of Isis and other Sunni extremists who see Assad’s Alawite sect as apostates, who are now backed not only by Shia Iranians but Russian Orthodox infidels too.
But fundamentally, Putin is much more interested in being seen to project Russian power than in fixing Syria’s war. His aim is to hold up Britain and America as paper tigers whose indecision has created a policy vacuum on Syria, into which Putin has confidently stepped. The Russian operation is small and portable enough for Putin to be able to roll it up in a week — and declare victory if and when the going gets tough. That, as he knows, is more than Britain and America have been able to do in any of our recent wars.
His Syrian intervention has highlighted the west’s confusion, indecision and lack of common sense
Owen Matthews | (The Spectator) | Russia Insider
This article originally appeared at The Spectator
Saddam Hussein hanged: is Iraq a better place? A safer place? Gaddafi murdered in front of the viewers: is Libya a better place? Now we are demonising Assad. Can we try to draw lessons?
— Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, United Nations, 1 October
— Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, United Nations, 1 October
Russia was right about Iraq and Libya, and America and Britain were dead wrong. Regime change doesn’t seem to have changed Middle Eastern countries for the better, as Vladimir Putin has been warning for years. His policy is not to support any armed groups ‘that attempt to resolve internal problems through force’ — by which he means rebels, ‘moderate’ or otherwise. In his words, the Kremlin always has ‘a nasty feeling that if such armed groups get support from abroad, the situation can end up deadlocked. We never know the true goals of these “freedom fighters” and we are concerned that the region could descend into chaos.’
Yet after a decade and a half of scolding the West for non-UN-sanctioned military interventions, Putin has now unilaterally committed Russian forces to what the former CIA director General David Petraeus calls the ‘geopolitical Chernobyl’ of Syria. Russia finds itself allied with Syria, Iraq and Iran — a new ‘coalition’ no less, as Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad described it on Iranian state TV last week. How and why did Putin fail to take his own advice about the unintended consequences that breed in middle-eastern quagmires? And most importantly, how has he managed — so far at least — to make Russia’s intervention in Syria into something close to a diplomatic triumph?
Russia’s decisive intervention has left Barack Obama and David Cameron looking weak and confused. When the usually steadfastly patriotic readers of the New York Daily News were asked whether Putin or Obama had ‘the stronger arguments’, 96 per cent said Putin. In Britain even hawks like Sir Max Hastings — no friend of the Kremlin — are arguing that Russia can help beat Isis. And most importantly, Putin stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly last month with an impassioned speech denouncing the whole US-backed project of democracy in the Middle East at its very root.
The Arab Spring has been a catastrophe, Putin argued, and the western countries who encouraged Arab democrats to rise against their corrupt old rulers opened a Pandora’s box of troubles. ‘Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster,’ he told assembled delegates, in remarks aimed squarely at the White House. ‘Nobody cares about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced this situation, do you realise what you have done?’ It was quite a sight: a Russian president taking the moral high ground against an American president — and getting away with it.
It’s a message that encapsulates Putin’s world-view. Stability and predictability are better than the uncertainties of democracy and revolution — that’s been the Kremlin’s line ever since a wave of ‘colour’ revolutions swept away Putin’s allies across the former Soviet bloc. When the Arab Spring obliterated Russian buddies Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, he had just the same idea. The Assad family — allies that Putin inherited from the days of Leonid Brezhnev — are simply the last of Moscow’s allies left standing in a world turned upside down by people power and its unpredictable consequences. In backing Assad, Putin is pushing back not just against the West and its support for democracy, but against the whole idea of popular revolt against authority.
Putin has emerged from his Syria gamble looking decisive because he at least knows who his allies are — and, no less importantly, who his enemies are. The US and UK, on the other hand, are against almost every major group fighting in Syria. The West opposes not just Assad and his allies (in the form of Lebanese Hezbollah forces and Iranian Revolutionary Guards) but almost every one of his opponents, in the form of Islamic State, the al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. True, there are a handful of moderate Syrian Sunni opposition groups which have received arms and training from the CIA. In Washington, you still hear fantasies of an ‘apolitical, nonsectarian and highly integrated’ new Syrian opposition army being sent forth to hold territory against both Assad and the jihadis, creating an inclusive government for all. Just this week David Cameron said he wanted Assad out because he would not be accepted by all Syrians. It is as if he still thinks straightforward regime change is possible. That kind of strategy might have sounded good in 2001 — but it’s hard to swallow after the utter collapse of US-trained local forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
In Syria the most effective US-backed, anti-Isis troops on the ground are the Kurdish rebels of the YPG — but the US has been powerless to stop its Nato ally Turkey from bombing the YPG in retaliation for a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey that has little to do with the Syrian civil war. Nor has the US been able to protect two of the Syrian Sunni opposition groups that it backs from Moscow’s airstrikes — Russian jets have already hit the front-line positions of Tajammu al-Aaza in Talbiseh and Jaish al-Tawhid (part of the Free Syrian Army) on the outskirts of Al-Lataminah. ‘On day one, you can say it was a one-time mistake,’ a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal after an allied rebel group’s headquarters was destroyed. ‘But on day three and day four, there’s no question it’s intentional. They know what they’re hitting.’ Protests by London and Washington have been politely ignored by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who speaks of ‘fighting terrorism together.’
But it’s precisely because Putin has been proved right about the dangers of intervention that his own adventure in Syria is likely to end badly. For one, it’s a myth that Assad is the main bulwark against Isis in Syria. According to figures from IHS Jane’s, only 6 per cent of the Syrian regime army’s 982 operations last year were actually directed against Isis. Most of Assad’s attacks — including with Scud missiles and the infamous barrel bombs dropped from helicopters on residential areas — targeted groups that opposed Isis, thereby helping pave the way for Isis to take over Raqqa and the oilfields of northern Syria.
And as Nato found out in Libya, air campaigns can produce unpredictable results. Even with hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground, as the coalition had in Iraq, US commander David Petraeus found that ‘you can’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency.’
The Russian operation in Syria is minuscule compared to the vast bases like Camp Victory that Halliburton built for the US military in Iraq, which looked like major airports and boasted full-scale food courts, shopping malls and acres of air-conditioned accommodation. Reports so far show a shipshape but tiny Russian operation, complete with a field bakery, a portable laundry and a single squadron of aircraft as well as some combat helicopters.
With this relatively small military force, Putin has achieved remarkable diplomatic leverage — and halted any renewed western attempts to depose Assad. But even the Kremlin cannot believe that Russian air power alone can deliver Assad victory. One senior British diplomat in the region expects the Russian airstrikes to be followed up with an Iranian-led ground offensive — possibly led by Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani, who visited Moscow earlier this summer. ‘That puts Russian-backed guys in the field into hostile contact with US-backed guys,’ says the diplomat. ‘That’s what we used to call a proxy war.’
There is also dangerous potential for direct escalation — deliberate or accidental — with Nato too. Russian and Nato planes could be flying in the same skies against different targets with no co-ordinated traffic control. Already a Russian jet has been intercepted by Turkish Air Force F-16s after allegedly violating Turkish (i.e. Nato) airspace. If Cameron calls for airstrikes on Syria — and the body language from Westminster suggests that a parliamentary vote is in prospect — then this should give his MPs pause. Why send the RAF into this mess, and risk entanglement with Russia and a far wider conflagration?
Putin’s intervention has certainly cast Assad a lifeline. Russian TV regularly shows images of happy Syrians watching Putin on the television with rapt attention, or waving Russian flags. But it may end up prolonging the war, since the Russian deployment has put paid to western plans for a no-fly zone to protect civilians in built-up areas. Assad will doubtless now attempt the impossible — recapturing the 80 per cent of Syria that he has lost since the beginning of the insurgency that has cost 220,000 lives so far. So Russia’s intervention may, ironically, end up strengthening the hand of Isis and other Sunni extremists who see Assad’s Alawite sect as apostates, who are now backed not only by Shia Iranians but Russian Orthodox infidels too.
But fundamentally, Putin is much more interested in being seen to project Russian power than in fixing Syria’s war. His aim is to hold up Britain and America as paper tigers whose indecision has created a policy vacuum on Syria, into which Putin has confidently stepped. The Russian operation is small and portable enough for Putin to be able to roll it up in a week — and declare victory if and when the going gets tough. That, as he knows, is more than Britain and America have been able to do in any of our recent wars.
gadeshi
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Vasilieva has "yellow card" insanity medical assignment. She claimed that 5000 russian troops in Donbass and published their names, which are... Fictional book characters, football team players, Ulan-Ude technical school students and so on taken from the Intrenet.CNN has reported breaking news! Russian Human Rights (TM) activist E. Vasileva, who lives in Ukraine now, confirms this!
Then this bitch started to trade POW liberation efforts $10000 each...
So, if CNN talks to this scumm, then CNN is failed...
Отправлено с моего XT1080 через Tapatalk
Akim
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It rarely, but I agree.
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