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SWJ Blog
06-10-2011, 11:31 AM
Book Review: Power and Policy in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/book-review-power-and-policy-i/)

Entry Excerpt:

Power and Policy in Syria: The Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations, and Democracy in the Modern Middle East
by Radwan Ziadeh.
Published by I.B. Tauris, New York. 219 pages, 2011.
Reviewed by CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein, MSC, USN

Radwan Ziadeh is an academic who teaches at Harvard and George Washington University. His current book is a nuanced look at the methods by which the current Syrian regime maintains a monopoly hold on power. The book opens with Syrian independence from French colonial rule in 1946. It discusses the stressors of that period that led to the creation of more radical political parties, successive government collapses (in 1954 four governments were formed and collapsed, and the grip of ideological thinking as well as dogmatism to cope with this instability. Ziadeh offers an interesting observation of Syrian political history, dividing its period into three republics (formation in 1946, unification with Egypt in 1958, and the revolutionary state 1963 to the present). The author is able to tie together strands of political history from an Arab and Syrian perspective, which makes the volume useful for Foreign Area Officer, and those analyzing Syria within the intelligence community and United States Central Command. It lays out the birth and evolution of the different organs of the security apparatus, which now exceeds 700,000 operatives in 2004.



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SWJ Blog
09-23-2011, 04:11 PM
Syria: The revolution will be weaponised (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/syria-the-revolution-will-be-weaponised)

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SWJ Blog
09-29-2011, 08:10 PM
The Syrian Opposition: A Strategic Analysis (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-syrian-opposition-a-strategic-analysis)

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SWJ Blog
02-17-2012, 03:12 AM
Journalist Anthony Shadid Dies in Syria at 43 (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journalist-anthony-shadid-dies-in-syria-at-43)

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SWJ Blog
02-23-2012, 01:00 PM
CNN: Thousands of Troops Needed to Secure Syrian Chemical Sites (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/cnn-thousands-of-troops-needed-to-secure-syrian-chemical-sites)

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SWJ Blog
03-02-2012, 02:23 PM
What the Pentagon should learn from the Syrian rebellion (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/what-the-pentagon-should-learn-from-the-syrian-rebellion)

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SWJ Blog
03-03-2012, 02:40 PM
Gentile: Realities of a Syrian Intervention (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/gentile-realities-of-a-syrian-intervention)

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SWJ Blog
03-13-2012, 06:22 PM
Loose Talk on Intervention in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/loose-talk-on-intervention-in-syria)

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SWJ Blog
04-07-2012, 11:22 AM
This Week at War: Syria as Prologue (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/this-week-at-war-syria-as-prologue)

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c_warner
04-26-2012, 04:21 PM
Hello to the community,

While seeking out and researching non-western COIN literature, I came across this al-Jazeera report that included several primary source documents allegedly leaked from within the Syrian government. Representative of Syrian efforts to undermine the internal "insurgency" being conducted by the Free Syrian Army. Not lengthy or technical but insightful nonetheless.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/03/2012319182523316314.html

Please excuse the misspelled entry title - couldn't figure out how to go back and change it.

TheCurmudgeon
05-02-2012, 12:31 PM
Interesting parallels between what the Syrian government is advocating and our own COIN doctrine.

Begs the question; If the U.S. Army was directed to support the current Syrian regime in its counterinsurgency fight, what would our operational directives look like?:eek:

SWJ Blog
05-16-2012, 09:53 AM
Criminalization of the Syrian Conflict (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/criminalization-of-the-syrian-conflict)

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SWJ Blog
06-22-2012, 12:13 AM
Syrian MiG Pilot Defects to Jordan (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/syrian-mig-pilot-defects-to-jordan)

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SWJ Blog
06-25-2012, 11:54 AM
A Hot Summer in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-hot-summer-in-syria)

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SWJ Blog
07-01-2012, 10:20 PM
Syrian Opposition Rejects UN Transition Deal (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/syrian-opposition-rejects-un-transition-deal)

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SWJ Blog
07-03-2012, 01:12 PM
The Syrian Revolution: A Report After 15 Months of Conflict (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-syrian-revolution-a-report-after-15-months-of-conflict)

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SWJ Blog
07-11-2012, 11:22 PM
Misreading Russia in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/misreading-russia-in-syria)

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SWJ Blog
07-19-2012, 10:20 AM
Tipping Point in Syria? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/tipping-point-in-syria)

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SWJ Blog
07-20-2012, 09:53 AM
Iraq in the Middle Part IV: Maria Fantappie on Iraq’s relations with Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraq-in-the-middle-part-iv-maria-fantappie-on-iraq%E2%80%99s-relations-with-syria)

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davidbfpo
08-07-2012, 10:22 AM
Moderator's Note

The developing situation in Syria is an important strategic issue and SWC has been watching closely. We simply cannot observe only, so this new thread has been started to discuss what is happening now, not what might have happened if there had been external, coercive intervention.

The discussion on the previous thread 'Syria: a civil war' was vibrant for a long time, with over six hundred posts; alas the standard of the exchange repeatedly required Moderator action and it was closed a few days ago.

Link to previous thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=12821

davidbfpo
08-07-2012, 10:51 AM
A few selected quotes from the previous thread do help:

In April 2011, a true expert on the country, Patrick Seale had a short comment on FP and sub-titled:
Forget Libya. Washington should pay closer attention to the violent protests imperiling the Assad regime in Damascus. If there's one country where unrest could truly set the Middle East alight, it's Syria.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/28/the_syrian_timebomb

From an ICG report in July 2011:
Desperate to survive at all costs, Syria’s regime appears to be digging its grave. It did not have to be so. The protest movement is strong and getting stronger but yet to reach critical mass. Unlike toppled Arab leaders, President Bashar Assad enjoyed some genuine popularity. Many Syrians dread chaos and their nation’s fragmentation. But whatever opportunity the regime once possessed is being jeopardised by its actions. Brutal repression has overshadowed belated, half-hearted reform suggestions; Bashar has squandered credibility; his regime has lost much of the legitimacy derived from its foreign policy. The international community, largely from fear of the alternative to the status quo, waits and watches, eschewing for now direct involvement. That is the right policy, as there is little to gain and much to lose from a more interventionist approach, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The Syrian people have proved remarkably resistant to sectarian or divisive tendencies, defying regime prophecies of confessional strife and Islamisation. That does not guarantee a stable, democratic future. But is a good start that deserves recognition and support....

Link:http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/109%20Popular%20Protest%20in%20North%20Africa%20an d%20the%20Middle%20East%20VII%20--%20The%20Syrian%20Regimes%20Slow-motion%20Suicide.pdf

In December 2011 a BBC reporter:
..the longer this goes on, the greater the chance that a once noble struggle for democracy on the streets will become an ugly sectarian conflict.

That will do as a "taster".

davidbfpo
08-07-2012, 11:06 AM
I chose the word carefully and the question mark. partly the catalyst being the reported defection of the Syrian Prime Minister, who via a spokesman stated to the BBC:
I have defected from the terrorist, murderous regime and [am] joining the holy revolution

From The Daily Telegraph:
Riyad Hijab will have deserted as prime minister of Syria because he thinks that President Bashar al-Assad is bound to be overthrown. After four years as a provincial governor and cabinet minister, he is better placed to make that judgement than any foreign diplomat or outside observer. The real significance of Mr Hijab's defection is that it betrays the future expectations of a man who knows how Syrian politics work.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19160410 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9456860/Riyad-Hijab-Syrian-prime-ministers-defection-dents-edifice-of-Syrias-regime.html

Yes, the Prime Minister is not the real head of government, even more so when Syria is becoming a brutal, civil war and the men with weapons dominate. Some will note a similar pattern of high-level defections during the fall of Gadafy in Libya, not replicated elsewhere in the "Arab Spring".

Tukhachevskii
08-07-2012, 12:20 PM
I chose the word carefully and the question mark. partly the catalyst being the reported defection of the Syrian Prime Minister, who via a spokesman stated to the BBC:

From The Daily Telegraph:

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19160410 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9456860/Riyad-Hijab-Syrian-prime-ministers-defection-dents-edifice-of-Syrias-regime.html

Yes, the Prime Minister is not the real head of government, even more so when Syria is becoming a brutal, civil war and the men with weapons dominate. Some will note a similar pattern of high-level defections during the fall of Gadafy in Libya, not replicated elsewhere in the "Arab Spring".

It's one thing to defect and another to defect after being sacked. Furthermore, his references to a "holy revolution" may well reveal where his actual sympathies lie (he's a Sunni). The "defection" of Sunnis to the so-called FSA shouldn't be a surprise.

Entropy
08-07-2012, 12:30 PM
"Crumbling" is a good word choice. The Assad regime still has a lot of power and advantages relative to the rebels, but the trends are heading down for Assad and IMO the regime's days are numbered.

Surferbeetle
08-07-2012, 01:04 PM
My departing advice on how to save Syria, By Kofi Annan, August 2, 2012 4:52 pm, Financial Times, www.ft.com


While the Security Council is trapped in stalemate, so too is Syria. The government has attempted to suppress, through extreme violence, a popular and widespread movement that, after 40 years of dictatorship, has decided it can no longer be intimidated. The result has been an increasing loss of control on the ground, and the opposition has turned to its own military campaign to fight back. Yet, it remains unclear how the government can be brought down through force alone.

However there is also a political impasse. A mass movement, born in the demand for civil and political rights and the empowerment of voices for change, emerged in Syria after March 2011. But, for all the extraordinary courage that it took for the protesters to march each day in the face of escalating violence by the government, this did not become a movement that bridged Syria’s communal divisions. Opportunities to overcome this were then lost in increasing violence.

Military means alone will not end the crisis. Similarly, a political agenda that is neither inclusive nor comprehensive will fail. The distribution of force and the divisions in Syrian society are such that only a serious negotiated political transition can hope to end the repressive rule of the past and avoid a future descent into a vengeful sectarian war.



There are clear common interests among the regional and international powers in a managed political transition. A conflagration threatens an explosion in the region that could affect the rest of the world. But it takes leadership to compromise to overcome the destructive lure of national rivalries. Joint action requires bilateral and collective efforts by all countries with influence over the actors on the ground in Syria, to press upon the parties that a political solution is essential.

For Russia, China and Iran this means they must take concerted efforts to persuade Syria’s leadership to change course and embrace a political transition, realising the current government has lost all legitimacy. A first move by the government is vital, as its intransigence and refusal to implement the six-point peace plan has been the greatest obstacle to any peaceful political process, ensuring the distrust of the opposition in proposals for a negotiated transition.

For the US, UK, France, Turkey Saudi Arabia and Qatar this means pressing the opposition to embrace a fully inclusive political process – that will include communities and institutions currently associated with the government. This also means recognising that the future of Syria rises and falls on more than the fate of just one man.

Iranians Seized in Syria Include Military, Rebels Say, By Ladane Nasseri and Glen Carey , August 06, 2012 3:06 AM EDT, Bloomberg News, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-05/iran-calls-on-rebel-allies-to-help-free-pilgrims-seized-in-syria.html


Syrian rebels said a group of people captured near Damascus included members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to a video broadcast by Al Arabiya, as fighting raged outside the capital and in Aleppo.

The claim contradicted Iranian descriptions of the abducted people as pilgrims. Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi urged Turkey and Qatar, which have backed the Syrian opposition, to help release the captives, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. IRNA said 48 pilgrims were abducted.

Entropy
08-07-2012, 01:25 PM
There are clear common interests among the regional and international powers in a managed political transition. A conflagration threatens an explosion in the region that could affect the rest of the world. But it takes leadership to compromise to overcome the destructive lure of national rivalries. Joint action requires bilateral and collective efforts by all countries with influence over the actors on the ground in Syria, to press upon the parties that a political solution is essential.

Kofi is tilting at windmills.

davidbfpo
08-10-2012, 02:07 PM
Amongst all the possibilities I was surprised to read this sub-title on FP Blog:
Meet the Irish-Libyan commander giving Bashar al-Assad nightmares

SWC will know I like to spot kith & kin links and there is a thread on the theme:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=8829

Quite an interesting story nevertheless:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/09/the_syrian_rebels_libyan_weapon?page=full

It ends with the commander's comment, itself a warning about the previous issue of intervention:
The complexity of the situation here makes me feel like we were just playing games in Libya last year.

Fuchs
08-10-2012, 02:58 PM
It's interesting how the rebels temporarily grabbed control of different patches of the country (or the cities).

I suspect this has disrupted the domestic intelligence capabilities to the degree that the regime was spiralling out of control of enough a share of the population to make the current overt mess possible.


What the Syrians (including the rebels) need right now the most is imho a domestic political push for a future without excessive payback against the Assad backers. This might swing the middle class to the rebels, reduce regime supporter's resolution and improve the prospect for a post-war period without mass emigration of minorities / much ethnic cleansing. A charismatic and formerly non-political celebrity could probably personify the push.

davidbfpo
08-10-2012, 04:21 PM
A good place sometimes to find a commentary on today's situation, a review of four new books on Syria; which starts with:
Pity the modern dictator. Time was he could bump off a recalcitrant opposition figure, take out a dissident stronghold, massacre the entire population of a town and the world would be none the wiser. There might be a pesky reporter trying to get to the truth, but that could be taken care of, as President Assad’s security forces demonstrated earlier this year.

Yet the digital world has made it much harder to brush war crimes and atrocities under the kilim. Thanks to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, surveillance states now find themselves under constant surveillance in turn. The spies are spied upon, lifting the lid — albeit only partially — on what is happening inside places like Syria. Factor in nosy- parkers like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, UN observer teams, ceasefire monitors and grandee envoys dropping by with television cameras, and the dictator bent on subduing a popular revolution with the gloves off has his work cut out these days.

Which ends with:
This quartet offers little in the way of optimism for Syria. Bleakness is the order of the day. Assad will not go quietly. The minorities are right to fear for the future. The fulcrum of Arab nationalism has become the site of a proxy war for influence between Sunni and Shia Islam. However soon he departs, whatever follows minority Alawite rule, it is surely difficult to predict anything but sectarian strife for years to come.

Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/issues/11-august-2012/embattled-dystopia

Entropy
08-10-2012, 05:17 PM
Prof Joshua Landis' prediction via the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19197169):


Prof Landis argues that what is going on in the Kurdish north-east offers a useful pointer to President Assad's "Plan B" should his control over key cities like Damascus and Aleppo crumble.

He says that the "embattled president withdrew government forces from the north-east because he couldn't control it and wanted to focus on the most important battles in Aleppo and Damascus".

"But in the back of the president's mind, there may be the thought that empowering the Kurds is a way of weakening the Sunni Arab majority and underlining the risks of fragmentation should his government fall. It's a strategy of playing upon divisions to sow chaos," he said.

This way, says Prof Landis, "the Syrian Army - which is rapidly becoming an Alawite militia, whilst still the strongest military force - may lose control over large swathes of the country, but will remain a vital factor in determining the political outcome in Syria".

It is a bleak prospect.

Prof Landis asserts that President Assad "may lose Syria, but could still remain a player, and his Alawite minority will not be destroyed".

"That's the future of Syria," he says, with little enthusiasm. "It's what Lebanon was and what Iraq became."

I think that's the likely alternative to a complete Assad collapse.

Surferbeetle
08-11-2012, 05:09 PM
Some insightful observations for your consideration; A conversation between Mr Charlie Rose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rose)(JD) and King Abdullah II of Jordan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_of_Jordan) posted at Bloomberg TV on 8/8/2012

8/8: King Abdullah II of Jordan on Syria, http://www.bloomberg.com/video/8-8-king-abdullah-ii-of-jordan-on-syria-~zps6XG6QrWND3JmE~letg.html


Charlie Rose: King Abdullah II of Jordan on his country's role in the Middle East, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region and the ongoing conflict in Syria

AdamG
08-17-2012, 05:20 PM
(Reuters) - The United States and its allies are discussing a worst-case scenario that could require tens of thousands of ground troops to go into Syria to secure chemical and biological weapons sites following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's government, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/us-syria-crisis-chemicalweapons-idUSBRE87G02420120817

davidbfpo
08-17-2012, 07:38 PM
I cannot see how an external intervention to safeguard the Syrian state's stockpiles of chemical and other weapons can be separated from the wider context.

Perhaps an Arab League & UN intervention is an option for such a single purpose intervention. Finding willing participants will be a challenge and from memory the UN has found it hard to get competent military contingents, let alone move fast.

There are historical, regional examples when Western nations with small UN peacekeeping contingents moved quickly to intervene on agreed ceasefire lines when local and international agreement was present - that time is past (Canada & Scandinavian forces IIRC).

The most capable regional military power, Israel, has been very quiet on a post-Assad Syria and currently is reported as more concerned with the "far enemy" Iran.

Bill Moore
08-18-2012, 10:34 AM
I cannot see how an external intervention to safeguard the Syrian state's stockpiles of chemical and other weapons can be separated from the wider context.

Sounds more like an excuse to justify force structure. Deploying thousands of troops will most likely be ineffective, while a much less expensive and probably more effective method would be for our intelligence assets to start making deals for the powers that be and will be in Syria (pay offs and other deals) to secure the chemical and alleged biological weapons. I agree if we make WMD the issue while turning a blind eye to the overall context we're going to make bigger mess that will undermine our interests far more than a few chemical weapons.

TheCurmudgeon
08-18-2012, 01:29 PM
I am curious if anyone thinks that the US, Britain, and France could back out of the corner that they have painted themselves into and support, or at least not violently oppose, Assad remaining in power.

Or do our interests in remaining closely tied to the Saudis and contra to anything Iranian trump any interest we actually have in Syria.

Rex Brynen
08-18-2012, 07:12 PM
I am curious if anyone thinks that the US, Britain, and France could back out of the corner that they have painted themselves into and support, or at least not violently oppose, Assad remaining in power.

I don't think any of the three feel they are in a corner. The almost universal consensus is that Asad is going down. Western countries are happy not to be in the driver's seat on this one (or be left responsible for the post-Asad reconstruction), and will let the Saudis, Qataris, and Turks do the not-so-covert arming of the opposition.

Sure, policymakers wish it would happen faster, worry about spillover and blowback (arms, radical jihadists), and worry about CW stockpiles. Generally, however, I think the view is that this will prove to be a gain in the end, and produce a Syria that will (eventually) be more friendly to the West and more responsive to its population than the Ba'thist dictatorship was.

Rex Brynen
08-18-2012, 07:15 PM
Sounds more like an excuse to justify force structure. Deploying thousands of troops will most likely be ineffective, while a much less expensive and probably more effective method would be for our intelligence assets to start making deals for the powers that be and will be in Syria (pay offs and other deals) to secure the chemical and alleged biological weapons. I agree if we make WMD the issue while turning a blind eye to the overall context we're going to make bigger mess that will undermine our interests far more than a few chemical weapons.

It is a lot more than a few, covert deals aren't really possible, and the concern is genuine (even if one feels it is misplaced). I don't think massive ground intervention is a terribly likely outcome, however.

TheCurmudgeon
08-18-2012, 10:02 PM
I don't think any of the three feel they are in a corner. The almost universal consensus is that Asad is going down.

Perhaps among the Western powers. I don't think that is as inevitable as they would like to believe.


Sure, policymakers wish it would happen faster, worry about spillover and blowback (arms, radical jihadists), and worry about CW stockpiles. Generally, however, I think the view is that this will prove to be a gain in the end, and produce a Syria that will (eventually) be more friendly to the West and more responsive to its population than the Ba'thist dictatorship was.

I am not so confident that the result will be a better Syria, or even a better Middle East. Anyone interested in getting involved here is doing it based on their own interests not those of the Syrians (us included). Assad may have been a dictator but he kept a lid on things. I am not positive that letting those existing hatreds fed by outside interests is a better path.

Dayuhan
08-19-2012, 02:22 AM
Perhaps among the Western powers. I don't think that is as inevitable as they would like to believe.

Possibly not, but I don't see that as a reason to try to stop him from falling. He'd be a first-class liability to anyone who intervened on his side, IMO.


I am not so confident that the result will be a better Syria, or even a better Middle East.

I'm also not that confident of those things... but again, it's happening and we're not going to un-happen it. Most likely Syria and the Middle East will be neither better nor worse, just different, with different opportunities and threats. What the parties involved do with and about those threats and opportunities will define whether things go better or worse.


Anyone interested in getting involved here is doing it based on their own interests not those of the Syrians (us included).

This of course is true, but it might be added that those who are not interested in getting involved are also acting according to their own perceived interests. There seems to be a pretty general disinterest in getting involved in any way beyond peripheral engagement with minimal commitment, suggesting that most parties do not see commitment as compatible with their interests.

Of course there are risks involved in letting things play out and dealing with whatever emerges, but there is no risk-free course of action, and I can see why decision makers would think that course of action presents less risk than any commitment to trying to direct the outcome.


Assad may have been a dictator but he kept a lid on things. I am not positive that letting those existing hatreds fed by outside interests is a better path.

A better path than what? Assad is clearly no longer able to keep a lid on things, and I see no point in trying to restore his ability to keep a lid on things... even in the unlikely event that we could do that, why would we want to? Not like he was ever any friend of ours.

It's not always up to us to dictate outcomes, and trying to dictate outcomes can get us into an epic load of mess.

Bill Moore
08-19-2012, 03:41 AM
Posted by Rex


It is a lot more than a few, covert deals aren't really possible, and the concern is genuine (even if one feels it is misplaced). I don't think massive ground intervention is a terribly likely outcome, however.

Covert deals in that part of the world are always possible, but of course not guarunteed. A lot of things are genuine concerns, and chemical weapons is one of them, but it must be viewed in the overall context of the situation to evaluate if it is worth the potentially much larger political risk to our interests if we put a large U.S. or coalition presence on the ground. We can't afford to get tunnel vision and simply see the chemical weapon warning light.

Most importantly it doesn't take thousands of troops to secure facilities unless you're defending them against large conventional forces. I think the assumption is enough troops to secure the site(s) long enough to neutralize, not park thousand of troops in country indefinitely.

We consistently fail when we attempt to prevent a group from getting weapons whether small arms, IEDs, and WMD (except for a successful operation that stopped the Nazi's from getting the bomb). It is almost equivalent to stopping the flow of illegal drugs. While oversimplifying for purpose of making a point, guns don't kill people, people kill people. The same line of reasoning applies to IEDs, WMD, etc. We can't simply focus on the weapon, we need a strategy for mitigating the threat (the people that will use it), which get backs to my larger point we have to appreciate/understand the larger context or we may make the threat worse.

Dayuhan
08-19-2012, 04:47 AM
I don't envy any American politician who decides he needs to sell a military intervention to neutralize Syrian WMD to the American public. The old adage about boys crying "wolf" does come to mind...

TheCurmudgeon
08-19-2012, 02:59 PM
No one sold intervention in Libya. The American public doesn't care as much as you think.

TheCurmudgeon
08-19-2012, 03:42 PM
Of course there are risks involved in letting things play out and dealing with whatever emerges, but there is no risk-free course of action, and I can see why decision makers would think that course of action presents less risk than any commitment to trying to direct the outcome.

Any action (or inaction) we take present risks AND by its very nature, constitute an attempt to direct an outcome (or at least prevent other outcomes). The question is more how much are we willing to risk for which desired outcome.


A better path than what?

A regional war that we would get sucked into.


Assad is clearly no longer able to keep a lid on things, and I see no point in trying to restore his ability to keep a lid on things...

I don't think it is that clear that he could not have kept a lid on things. He probably had the ability prior to other interested parties providing support. Remember, this has been going on for some time and Assad has only recently resorted to real military might like air strikes. Had Turkey and the Saudis not gotten involved he might have little problem keeping a lid on things.

This is no longer a civil war, it is a proxy war. Containment and damage control are our primary interests. Actions (or inaction) we take should, IMO, be based on those two interests.

ganulv
08-19-2012, 05:02 PM
“Machine gun in right hand. Cell phone in left. On duty on the gun-truck’s machine gun, at 80 miles an hour into Aleppo, checking messages along the way.” [LINK (http://cjchivers.com/post/29652847620/mgexting-machine-gun-in-right-hand-cell-phone)]


http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8xbkn9FfM1qddb3no2_1280.jpg

Dayuhan
08-20-2012, 07:54 AM
No one sold intervention in Libya. The American public doesn't care as much as you think.

I'd say Obama made some effort to sell the intervention, ably assisted by media: for a while it seemed like you couldn't look at a TV without seeing a reporter on the ground in Benghazi reporting on the imminent sack of the city and interviewing people who were about to be slaughtered. The lack of a similar media-safe threatened zone is, I suspect, a major reason for the lack of enthusiasm for intervention in Syria. The Anglo/French willingness to take at least a nominal lead role was also critical in the sale.


Any action (or inaction) we take present risks AND by its very nature, constitute an attempt to direct an outcome (or at least prevent other outcomes).

Is the current strategy an attempt to direct an outcome or an acknowledgement that our capacity to direct outcomes is limited?


The question is more how much are we willing to risk for which desired outcome.

I'd also ask whether we have or at any point had an available move that had any meaningful chance of providing our desired outcome. I've yet to see any suggestion that we did, and in the absence of one I'm not inclined to be very critical of the course adopted, which seems to me not unreasonable.


A regional war that we would get sucked into.

That would be an adverse outcome, but what available course would have prevented it? Diving into a mess out of fear that one might in the future get sucked into it seems a course of questionable wisdom.


I don't think it is that clear that he could not have kept a lid on things. He probably had the ability prior to other interested parties providing support. Remember, this has been going on for some time and Assad has only recently resorted to real military might like air strikes. Had Turkey and the Saudis not gotten involved he might have little problem keeping a lid on things.

I'm not sure that fits the chronology very well... seems to me the lid was well and truly off well before any outside parties got involved in any meaningful way, nor is it clear that outside involvement has at any point been a major driver of the conflict... not that the US could at any point have prevented outside parties from getting involved.


This is no longer a civil war, it is a proxy war.

Based on what evidence? Certainly outside parties are involved, on both sides, but I've seen no evidence or suggestion that outside involvement has reached the point where either Assad or those who oppose him could reasonably be said to be anyone's proxy. What's the actual extent of the outside support? Could either side not survive without it? All I've seen suggests that accelerated defections from the armed forces account for more of the rebel's gains than outside assistance. Of course we don't have inside information, but is there any evidence to suggest that outside assistance is a make-or-break factor for either side?

AdamG
08-20-2012, 03:46 PM
“Machine gun in right hand. Cell phone in left. On duty on the gun-truck’s machine gun, at 80 miles an hour into Aleppo, checking messages along the way.”

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9014/brbfirefightlulz.jpg

Also


An insurgent army which claims to be up to 15,000 strong is being coordinated from Turkey to take on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, which risks plunging the region into open warfare.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8868027/15000-strong-army-gathers-to-take-on-Syria.html

and


What Russia taught Syria: When you destroy a city, make sure no one -- not even the story -- gets out alive.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/02/kill_the_messenger


and


BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian regime threatened Monday to use its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack, in its first ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi stressed, however, that Damascus would not use its unconventional arms against its own citizens. The announcement comes as Syria faces international isolation, a tenacious rebellion that has left at least 19,000 people dead and threats by Israel to attack to prevent such weapons from falling into rebel hands.

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-says-chemical-weapons-attacked-103925213.html

Entropy
08-20-2012, 03:48 PM
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9014/brbfirefightlulz.jpg

Awesome!:D

AdamG
08-20-2012, 03:53 PM
Budget brand tactics #8783 : how to draw fire from a sniper (http://i.imgur.com/KjSJi.png) in Homs, Syria

Rex Brynen
08-20-2012, 08:25 PM
Based on what evidence? Certainly outside parties are involved, on both sides, but I've seen no evidence or suggestion that outside involvement has reached the point where either Assad or those who oppose him could reasonably be said to be anyone's proxy. What's the actual extent of the outside support? Could either side not survive without it? All I've seen suggests that accelerated defections from the armed forces account for more of the rebel's gains than outside assistance. Of course we don't have inside information, but is there any evidence to suggest that outside assistance is a make-or-break factor for either side?

Agreed. Outside assistance at this point probably counts for 5% or less of rebel resources, although it is starting to increase.

The "civil war vs proxy war" dichotomy that people throw around is an odd one, since the vast majority of civil wars involve some sort of external involvement. In this case, Gulf, Turkish, diaspora, and (to a lesser extent) Western aid to the opposition will likely speed the end of the Asad regime, but they are hardly the cause of its impending demise.

Dayuhan
08-20-2012, 11:59 PM
Agreed. Outside assistance at this point probably counts for 5% or less of rebel resources, although it is starting to increase.

Sending weapons is of no use if there are no fighters willing or able to use the weapons... material aid can assist a rebellion, but it can't create one. I suspect that ultimately Assad's fate will depend on his ability to retain the loyalty of his armed forces, not on any outside involvement.

It might be claimed that outside introduction of certain weapons could be decisive in an insurgency. That claim has sometimes been made for the US introduction of MANPADS during the Soviet-Afghan war, though that claim has been credibly challenged. I've seen no suggestion that any such game-changing weaponry has been introduced in Syria.


The "civil war vs proxy war" dichotomy that people throw around is an odd one

Odd, but useful: there's always propaganda value, for either side, in claiming that your opponent is a tool of the manipulative furriner.

davidbfpo
08-21-2012, 11:24 AM
Although I have a reasonable mind map of Syria these maps really help, especially for showing regime supportive areas:http://www.understandingwar.org/press-media/graphsandstat/map-syrias-maturing-insurgency

Or a BBC edition with less detail:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19285076

davidbfpo
08-24-2012, 09:34 AM
First from a "lurker" familiar with the region:
The West is reading more than a local might into the current conflict in Tripoli. The bottom line is that perhaps too much of what is happening in Lebanon is being seen from the viewpoint of a western based position that sees Assad as bad, and the rebels (any rebels) as good. Labelling them this way may help to make it come true. But it does not mean that it is true in the first place.

Syria is still heading toward a Lebanese style civil war. This will not be to the benefit of “western” security.

Secondly Professor Paul Rogers writes an overview, which ends on an optimistic note re the new UN Mission:
For the moment, however, rhetoric still holds sway. A particularly bad example is the demand from western sources that the experienced Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi - the successor of Kofi Annan as United Nations-Arab League envoy in Syria - should agree that the regime gives up power. Brahimi, whose willingness to assume the task of mediation is one of the very few hopeful recent indicators, is far too able to accede to a course that would stymie his mission before it starts.

If Brahimi can engineer a provisional settlement, in the process building on private concerns in Washington and other capitals, that would create some hope of a genuine halt to Syria's descent. The best prospect now is a least-worse option, and even that could only be achieved against great odds. Without it, there is a real risk that the war in Syria could last years rather than months.

He makes a point on Syria's chemical weapons:
Syria decided on developing a chemical-weapon arsenal to counter Israel's unique nuclear capability, a choice reinforced in the wake of Israel's destruction of so many Syrian aircraft in Lebanon in the mid-1980s. The Syrian chemical force is thus configured with Israel in mind, but that does not diminish its potential for other uses if the Assad regime seems about to disintegrate.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/syria-war-and-diplomacy

Bill Moore
08-25-2012, 02:41 AM
This Matt VanDyke fellow is an interesting character who obviously sports a large pair. I'm comfortable he is a freedom fighter (as least in his mind), but can't help to wonder if these activities are also supporting the Jihadists. Thoughts?

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/syria-kickstarter

New Kickstarter Pitch: ‘Join the Syrian Uprising’


Their next project: go to Syria, an exceptionally dangerous place for journalists, activists or human beings in general. But they’re not exactly journalists or documentarians. Their Kickstarter pitch: “Two freedom fighters from the Libyan revolution join the Syrian uprising against Assad and capture it all on film.” Wait, what?

Is this a Kickstarter to crowdfund the revolution or to crowdfund a film about the revolution? VanDyke’s answer skirts the line. “The purpose of this project is to film in support of the rebels,” he tells Danger Room, “we do not anticipate participating in combat this time.”

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matthewvandyke/this-is-your-chance-to-become-part-of-the-arab-spr?ref=card

Interesting video, and you'll note on his website extensive use of social media.

http://www.matthewvandyke.com/

Under facts:


I gave 8 months of my life to the cause of freedom in Libya, including nearly 6 months in a Libyan prison. I served honorably and with dignity, giving everything I had to the cause. It is both distressing and appalling that after I returned to the United States I found Joel Simon attempting to tarnish my reputation and service with outright lies and distortions in his blog to cover up his own unprofessional conduct in my case in order to save his job as executive director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Dayuhan
08-25-2012, 02:55 AM
This Matt VanDyke fellow is an interesting character who obviously sports a large pair. I'm comfortable he is a freedom fighter (as least in his mind), but can't help to wonder if these activities are also supporting the Jihadists. Thoughts?

He seems exceedingly fond of himself and his self-image, and I have to wonder whether the intent of the project is to promote the Syrian revolution or to promote Matt VanDyke.

Bill Moore
08-25-2012, 03:05 AM
He seems exceedingly fond of himself and his self-image, and I have to wonder whether the intent of the project is to promote the Syrian revolution or to promote Matt VanDyke.

There are few wall flowers that are able to promote anything effectively. Admittedly some people are dragged kicking and screaming into the spot light, while others are trying to find ways to stay in the middle of it. Still it seems many successful people in the public sector have exceedingly large egos which may in fact be annoying, but I suspect that is also what gives them the drive to do what they do while others sit in on the side lines and criticize and claim it can't be done. Several senior military officers also carefully craft their imagine and you wonder what their priorities are sometime, but at the end of the day, at least to some extent this may be necessary. Still agree that those seeking fame are annoying and it does bring into question their motives, yet if their effective does it really matter?

Dayuhan
08-25-2012, 08:17 AM
There are few wall flowers that are able to promote anything effectively. Admittedly some people are dragged kicking and screaming into the spot light, while others are trying to find ways to stay in the middle of it. Still it seems many successful people in the public sector have exceedingly large egos which may in fact be annoying, but I suspect that is also what gives them the drive to do what they do while others sit in on the side lines and criticize and claim it can't be done. Several senior military officers also carefully craft their imagine and you wonder what their priorities are sometime, but at the end of the day, at least to some extent this may be necessary. Still agree that those seeking fame are annoying and it does bring into question their motives, yet if their effective does it really matter?

I guess that depends on what they're effective at... at changing conditions on the ground, or at advancing their own careers.

I can identify with the plan to some extent; long ago in my deranged youth I attempted something very similar, and I'd readily admit that there were a few dreams of fame in the mix then. Of course I didn't become famous or change the world, possibly because I wasn't much good at self-promotion, though that was admittedly more difficult in the pre-internet world. At my current age I'd rather sit on the sidelines and... question, if not criticize.

I wouldn't say it couldn't be done, or even that it shouldn't be done, but I do suspect that the purpose - whether to advance a revolution or a career - is likely to have a great deal of influence on the final product. We shall see.

Still, the level of self-promotion on that site is to me well over the top. If he gets himself killed, well, that's his choice. Hope he doesn't get anyone else killed in the process.

jcustis
08-25-2012, 02:53 PM
Anyone thinking Jack Idema like I am?

davidbfpo
08-25-2012, 03:01 PM
Anyone thinking Jack Idema like I am?

Not a name I'm familiar with, so I checked on Google to find jack was dead, but for those who seek some knowledge check this 'disputed' Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Idema

ganulv
08-25-2012, 03:14 PM
Anyone thinking Jack Idema like I am?

This guy seems more stable and less colorful to me.

Wyatt
08-25-2012, 06:44 PM
his site is pretty self aggrandizing but still entertaining. The best part was how he contributed 8 months of his life to the libyan revolution but 6 months were spent as a non starter in jail.

If he wants to be a war tourist go ahead. Nice thing about doing it yourself is you can come and go when you please, but you have no support. Hope he doesnt feel entitled to sof help if he's about to get his head chopped off.

i may be biased as one of my favorite books of all time is "my war gone by i miss it so" by anthony lloyd

CWOT
08-29-2012, 01:32 AM
Yesterday, I started a 1- question poll reference the continually evolving situation in Syria.

Should the U.S. and Europe openly support the Syrian resistance?

What do you think? Vote here at this link if interested:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZRS5JDG

I'll post the results of all responses here later in the week.

Dayuhan
08-29-2012, 02:04 AM
"Support" is a pretty broad word, the answers would be more revealing if the question were more specific.

"Support" as in verbal support, non-lethal material support, lethal material support, air support, boots on the ground? Big span there.

davidbfpo
08-29-2012, 09:18 AM
I voted yesterday and added a comment to another discussion board:
We should acknowledge that the public in the West, especially in the USA, has a very short memory and is rarely patient for the "long haul". Today I listened on the BBC to a respected SME on Syria, who commented that the Assad regime could last far longer.

We are often told external, maybe Western help (lethal or non-lethal), is a "game changer" and will provide the "magic" to end a conflict quickly. With the recent exception of Libya, where the end result remains unclear, our help invariably last decades.

Are you prepared to help for years? Incidentally the USA, where most of this board's members reside, tried to help in the Lebanese Civil War, paying a high price and who ended that war - Syria. Makes you pause to think.

davidbfpo
09-01-2012, 04:26 PM
I've seen the limited MSM news clips of regime aircraft being fired upon, so it was interesting to find this blogsite with an array of film clips and links to commentaries:http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/more-evidence-of-complete-sa-7-anti.html

Plus the always valuable CJ Chivers:http://cjchivers.com/post/30612441575/in-syria-inching-toward-ground-to-air-capacity

davidbfpo
09-05-2012, 01:05 PM
Paul Smyth, a SWC member, has written this piece for CNN and he concludes:
Calls for a NFZ in Syria must not ignore reality. The inconvenient truth is that Syria is not Iraq, Kosovo or especially Libya. The considerable logistic, operational and command challenges faced must not be overlooked or dismissed.
These obstacles may not be insurmountable, but the limitations of a NFZ remain, especially as a means of protecting the Syrian people or bringing the rebels battlefield victory.

Link:http://news.sky.com/story/980758/syria-conflict-the-no-fly-zone-deception

davidbfpo
09-08-2012, 01:03 PM
Hat tip to CWOT via Twitter, a short photo sequence and clearly not a "level playing field" in Aleppo:http://www.globalpost.com/photo-galleries/planet-pic/5718451/life-and-death-aleppo-photos and a rather grim three minute video clip:http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120905/aleppo-video-bomb-attack-children-death-toll

JMA
09-08-2012, 04:56 PM
Paul Smyth, a SWC member, has written this piece for CNN and he concludes:

Link:http://news.sky.com/story/980758/syria-conflict-the-no-fly-zone-deception

David, Paul Smyth appears to be trapped in the historical paradigm of how to take aircraft out of the equation.

He correctly identifies the limitations of trying to enforce a NFZ through the threat of airborne interdiction but fails to apply some simple lateral thinking.

The deterrent of a NFZ is that if aircraft enter the designated NFZ area they will be engaged. This is the problem, to enforce this you need the costly means to instantly react.

There is of course a simpler method.

The response to breach of the NFZ does not have to be targeted at the particular aircraft... does it?

What about targeting the originating airfield? Doesn't have to be immediate. Crater that runway as soon as possible.

Helicopters are a more difficult proposition as are artillery weapons. Again simple.

If helicopters or artillery are used then instead of playing cat and mouse just have a list of military targets which can be dealt with sequentially in response to NFZ breaches or the use of artillery.

Why does the most complicated method always receive the most consideration?

.

davidbfpo
09-13-2012, 10:08 AM
The latest IISS Strategic Comment, which ends with:
While direct intervention in Syria remains remote, the issue will remain a burning one for Syrian opposition leaders and Western, Turkish and Arab policymakers as the toll increases. Without a legal UN mandate and solid Arab cover, the practical and strategic risks may well outweigh humanitarian considerations. Tragically, the longer they wait to intervene, the stronger the case for intervention will be - but the costs will also be greater.

I'd missed this aspect of a no-fly zone:
Syrian coastal defences would need first to be nullified. (They boast, in particular, SS-C-5 Stooge (Bastion) supersonic anti-ship missile coastal defence missile batteries supplied by Russia within the last two years.)

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-18-2012/september/syria-foreign-intervention-still-debated-but-distant/

davidbfpo
09-19-2012, 11:35 AM
A rather different glimpse into Syria:
In the closing pages of his book, (Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising) Stephen Starr describes a social system constructed on a lack of law and order, which is designed to instil fear. In this current crisis which is also an identity crisis, the author ponders the fate of the Syrian silent majority and the role they have to play.

Here is an example, albeit from 2010:
A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/stephen-starr/excerpt-from-%E2%80%98revolt-in-syria-eye-witness-to-uprising%E2%80%99

tequila
09-19-2012, 07:29 PM
From Nir Rosen, LRB - Among the Alawites (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n18/nir-rosen/among-the-alawites)



Syria’s Alawite heartland is defined by its funerals. In Qirdaha in the mountainous Latakia province, hometown of the Assad dynasty, I watched as two police motorcycles drove up the hill, pictures of Bashar mounted on their windshields. An ambulance followed, carrying the body of a dead lieutenant colonel from state security. As the convoy passed, the men around me let off bursts of automatic fire. My local guides were embarrassed that I had seen this display, and claimed it was the first time it had happened. ‘He is a martyr, so it is considered a wedding.’ Schoolchildren and teachers lining the route threw rice and flower petals. ‘There is no god but God and the martyr is the beloved of God!’ they chanted. Hundreds of mourners in black walked up through the village streets to the local shrine. ‘Welcome, oh martyr,’ they shouted. ‘We want no one but Assad!’

...

In the coastal province of Tartus and other parts of the Alawite heartland, countless new loyalist checkpoints have been set up, manned by the Syrian Army or by paramilitary members of popular committees in a mix of civilian clothes and military gear. The countryside has armed itself. In May I visited the mountain town of Sheikh Badr in Tartus province. Forty-three townsmen in the security forces had been killed; seven others had been captured or were missing. While I was in the mayor’s office he received news that a wounded soldier had just been brought in. Sheikh Badr’s first martyr was killed in Daraa in April 2011, one month into the uprising. Its most recent, a colonel killed in Damascus, was buried two days before I visited.

...

Alawites aren’t wrong to feel that for all the fury of its repression, the state is at a loss to know how to protect them. It is this feeling, above all, that has led to the growth of the increasingly powerful independent loyalist militias who act with impunity and often embarrass the regime. The militias have been responsible for several massacres in Homs and Hama, but Bashar is in no position to bear down on his most diehard supporters. An engineer in Homs, an Alawite who had joined the opposition, told me that the first time he saw loyalist gangs in action was in March 2011. ‘It was random and nobody organised them,’ he said. ‘They only had clubs. But by July they were organised. Now they work on their own account … The most dangerous thing in a civil war is the people who live off it and depend on it financially. I saw this in Lebanon. In Homs it’s open civil war.’

The war has broken down into true civil war now, and one gets the feeling that there is no way this ends. Even if Bashar stepped down and the army disbanded itself, the fighting would continue, and perhaps even intensify as the Sunni town and local warlords fought amongst each other, opening a window for the Salafis and jihadists.

A true national tragedy for the people of Syria.

For the U.S., it's likely best to stay out of there - but what about Syria's chem/bio arsenal, not to mention its vast stock of weaponry, including handheld antiair missiles? Every nonstate actor in the region will be salivating to get at the Assads' stocks once state authority truly breaks down.

davidbfpo
09-22-2012, 06:22 PM
This report examines the presence of jihadist groups within Syria, explains where various Syrian rebel groups and foreign elements operating in Syria fall along the spectrum of religious ideology, and considers their aggregate effect upon the Islamification of the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian conflict began as a secular revolt against autocracy. Yet as the conflict protracts, a radical Islamist dynamic has emerged within the opposition. There is a small but growing jihadist presence inside Syria, and this presence within the opposition galvanizes Assad’s support base and complicates U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Link:http://www.understandingwar.org/report/jihad-syria

davidbfpo
09-23-2012, 04:05 PM
Syria, you know, I was ambassador to Syria for three fun-filled years. .. Bashar is like his father except worse—less flexible, more doctrinaire, less agile and aware that he doesn’t have his father’s support. So I think this is—it’s going to be a fight to the finish....nowhere, I am afraid, could it be more bitter than in Syria, where we’re already seeing the signs of sectarian divisions, tensions and hatreds surface, even with Bashar still in the palace. You know, again, the past isn’t past in Syria.

Link:http://carnegieendowment.org/files/091712_transcript_crocker1.pdf

Fuchs
09-23-2012, 05:45 PM
A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.

Actually, this is not so terribly alien to Germans.

The German law books have 15 paragraphs about crimes that will only be prosecuted if the victim demands it.
A further 12 paragraphs are about crimes that are basically the same, but a state attorney can still go after them if (s)he sees a public interest in doing so.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antragsdelikt

Germans (and people in Germany) are not obliged to report crimes (except the planning of certain crimes) in general (exception; police etc).

We would of course report such a homicide and police would go after the brother until it's believed that it really was an accident, but our legal situation does not demand that anyone reports the crime.

davidbfpo
09-24-2012, 10:46 AM
An odd article on accommodation, culture and insurgency. What I found noteworthy was the location:
Jibata al-Khashab, located on the Syrian border with the occupied Golan, has been under the control of FSA battalions for the past two months.

I don't recall the FSA being near the Golan.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/rita-from-syria/having-tea-with-enemy-on-syrian-border

JMA
09-24-2012, 01:54 PM
Link:http://carnegieendowment.org/files/091712_transcript_crocker1.pdf

Same holds with Syria as it did with Libya... arm the opposition at your peril.

.

davidbfpo
09-24-2012, 04:29 PM
An intrepid reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has written this article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/23/syria-foreign-fighters-joining-war

Interesting to note the differences between the Jihadists and the Syrians, although that does not explain the Jihadist's attrition rate completly.

He also has a PBS documentary, this was on the PBS website, but didn't load in the UK and I accessed it via:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2012/9/22/syria-video-documentary-the-heart-of-the-battle-pbs-frontlin.html

There is a second historical documentary, which is good round-up too.

SWJ Blog
09-25-2012, 10:01 AM
Iraq, Syria, and the Twelfth Imam (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraq-syria-and-the-twelfth-imam)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iraq-syria-and-the-twelfth-imam) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
09-25-2012, 01:54 PM
Via Twitter a Swedish report on the Syrian Jihadist movement:http://www.ui.se/upl/files/76917.pdf

davidbfpo
09-29-2012, 11:03 AM
A good, comprehensive analysis:
Turkey’s cooperation with the Gulf states, reportedly establishing a secret shared command centre in southern Turkey to coordinate rebel attacks, may be designed to contain the influence of others and control which groups get arms. But Turkey’s recent regional resurgence in the Middle East is at risk of drowning in the Syrian quagmire.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/christopher-phillips/turkey%E2%80%99s-syria-problem

davidbfpo
10-01-2012, 08:57 AM
A different angle to the war in Syria, an account by an ITN reporter on meeting snipers and other fighters on the government's side in Homs - with additional commentary set in Damascus:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9576261/Syria-despatch-meeting-Assads-snipers-as-they-fight-rebels-in-Homs.html

I assume there was a TV film report, but nothing on ITN's website appears to match.

SWJ Blog
10-01-2012, 10:13 AM
The Syrian Army's Switch to Murder (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-syrian-armys-switch-to-murder)

Entry Excerpt:



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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

Wyatt
10-02-2012, 01:54 AM
This week on Al Arabiya there has been some releases of documents claiming that the pilots of the turkish jet were executed and that several damascus car bombs were set off by the regime. There has been almost no discussion of this on other media outlets.

I have always considered Al arabiya the saudi counterpart to Al jazeera however with something of this magnitude, and its lack of concurrent coverage, it raises to question of false news.

I know that it has been criticized as the advocate of saudi foreign policy, but al jazeera has faced the same re qatar. Is al arabiya a credible foreign source?

Surferbeetle
10-04-2012, 03:24 AM
Al Arabiya News English, http://english.alarabiya.net

Al Arabiya, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Arabiya

Iraqi Perceptions of the War, SWJ, http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2791

Jordan Rises as Internet Hub While King Curbs Expression, By Stephanie Baker - Oct 1, 2012 2:01 PM MT, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/jordan-rises-as-internet-hub-while-king-curbs-expression.html


Before there was an Arab Spring, there was a quiet revolution of sorts brewing in Jordan.

The country experienced a tech boom that gained speed as young Arabs toppled regimes from Egypt to Tunisia and millions were driven online for the first time. Jordan now hosts about three-quarters of all Arabic content on the Internet, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU).


Can it last? Doubts grew in September when the Jordanian parliament passed a law curtailing freedom of expression on the Internet and giving the government broad powers to block websites it deems inappropriate.


On a scale of 1 (most free) to 7 (least free), Jordan scores 5.5, or “not free,” according to the Freedom in the World 2011 report published by Washington-based Freedom House.

Tukhachevskii
10-13-2012, 05:38 PM
Tentative Jihad: Syria’s Fundamentalist Opposition (http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/egypt-syria-lebanon/syria/131-tentative-jihad-syrias-fundamentalist-opposition.aspx?utm_source=syriareport&utm_medium=1&utm_campaign=mremail)

Rex Brynen
10-14-2012, 08:07 PM
This week on Al Arabiya there has been some releases of documents claiming that the pilots of the turkish jet were executed and that several damascus car bombs were set off by the regime. There has been almost no discussion of this on other media outlets.

I have always considered Al arabiya the saudi counterpart to Al jazeera however with something of this magnitude, and its lack of concurrent coverage, it raises to question of false news.

I know that it has been criticized as the advocate of saudi foreign policy, but al jazeera has faced the same re qatar. Is al arabiya a credible foreign source?

So far the documents look fake to me.

Wyatt
10-15-2012, 11:38 PM
Thats a shame since I was hoping to use Al-Arabiya english as an saudi perspective alternative view to qatari al-jazeera.

Paul Smyth
10-17-2012, 01:31 PM
Hi,
sorry for the late reply, I've just seen your comment.

Yes, there are other ways to enforce a NFZ beyond dealing with an aircraft as it breaches the Zone. However, it would be wrong to see that as an option in Syria which simply removes the difficulties I outlined. Pse consider:

1. It takes more than a bomb crater to close a runway and it can be repaired (hence development of the JP233 in the Cold War). Closing all SAF MOBs would require signif & repeated effort. Ramp space & Risk?

2. A punitive approach would open up allied aircraft to ambush.

3. ROE. Yes, offensive action might be limited to that which is taken against a breaching aircraft. That may be a strong political constraint. The NFZ isn't happening in a vacuum.

4. Helos are a problem even if detected inside a NFZ. What if a Helo is being used for Casevac? Again, ROE can be a real constraint (e.g. as in the Balkans).

5. The major problems with the suggestion of a list of penalty targets are the risks associated with attacking them (if beyond the NFZ) and the very real consideration of campaign escalation. E.g. would allies be happy to attack a C2 node or Regime asset elsewhere in Syria because of a helo infringement? These are genuine legal and political issues that 'lateral thinking' might ignore.

Lastly, as an ex-mud-mover I'd say my 'historical paradigm of how to take aircraft out of the equation' would be to attack airfields....!

Paul

carl
10-18-2012, 01:18 AM
Here is a video of a Syrian gov helo (MI-8/17?) going down and exploding in midair.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/17/14514429-syrian-helicopter-reportedly-downed-by-rebels-over-idlib?lite

The photographer zooms out and in several times and when he zooms out it appears the helo is coming down from a fairly high altitude, high enough that it seems improbable that ground guns got him. From my civilian point of view it seems more likely that a missile got him.

Does anybody know if those missiles that went walk about from Libya have made it to the Syrian opposition?

(Regardless, we are going to have trouble with those missing Libyan SA-24s in the years to come.)

TheCurmudgeon
10-18-2012, 06:57 PM
Do those missiles leave a vapor trail. Noticed from the video when he pulled back to wide angle you could almost see where the smoke from the failing helicopter started and I did not notice any other smoke angling up towards that area.

Also did not see any tracer fire following it down from a crew served weapon (like a DShKM) ... so maybe it was just mechanical failure?????

carl
10-18-2012, 09:07 PM
They leave a trail while the motor is burning but the motor only burns for so long. Once it burns out, I don't know. It appears the video was shot from behind the helo, so maybe it was hit by a missile whose motor had burned out and it was hit outside the frame since it would have kept moving forward while moving down. Then again, maybe not. We will probably never know.

It appears that the helo was massively leaking fuel before it blew up. I think that is what it is trailing as it goes down.

Ray
10-19-2012, 08:16 PM
A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.

The banker must have forgotten to mention that Sharia rules.

Pay money and all is well.

Same as the CIA chap in Pakistan. Money paid and all is forgiven!

jcustis
10-20-2012, 03:34 PM
Does anybody know if those missiles that went walk about from Libya have made it to the Syrian opposition?

(Regardless, we are going to have trouble with those missing Libyan SA-24s in the years to come.)

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:e6d7cd5f-8bef-4f72-a64f-c98fdf99a7a0

http://www.armyrecognition.com/images/stories/middle_east/libya/weapons/sa-24_grinch_igla-s/pictures/SA-24_Grinch_9K338_Igla-S_portable_air_defense_missile_system_Libya_Libyan _army_001.jpg

A manufacturing industry official in Russia apparently indicated that the SA-24s in Libya are not MANPAD capable.

SA-7 to -14 weapons adrift in the world are not a threat unique to Libya. There were literally thousands of the all over the place in Iraq, and it was not uncommon to find missiles, batteries, and trigger units lying around. The opportunity to seize these weapons was incredibly high in 2003, and although many of them probably were, I'm not so sure they had more than a minimal impact on the remaining 8 years of our presence. Analysts are getting lathered up about Libyan SAMs, but I suspect the true impact in the region and the world will be just about as limited as it was in the wake of Iraq' collapse.

AdamG
10-20-2012, 08:16 PM
The fun-n-games never stops.


DEIR SONBUL, Syria - The government of Syria, trying to contain a rapidly expanding insurgency, has resorted to one of the dirty tricks of the modern battlefield: salting ammunition supplies of antigovernment fighters with ordnance that explodes inside rebels' weapons, often wounding and sometimes killing the fighters while destroying many of their hard-found arms.

The practice, which rebels said started in Syria early this year, is another element of the government's struggle to combat the opposition as Syria's military finds itself challenged across a country where it was not long ago an uncontested force. The government controls the skies, and with aircraft and artillery batteries it has pounded many rebel strongholds throughout this year. But the rebels continue to resist, mostly with small arms.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/world/middleeast/syrian-government-booby-traps-rebels-ammunition.xml

carl
10-21-2012, 05:44 PM
A manufacturing industry official in Russia apparently indicated that the SA-24s in Libya are not MANPAD capable.

SA-7 to -14 weapons adrift in the world are not a threat unique to Libya. There were literally thousands of the all over the place in Iraq, and it was not uncommon to find missiles, batteries, and trigger units lying around. The opportunity to seize these weapons was incredibly high in 2003, and although many of them probably were, I'm not so sure they had more than a minimal impact on the remaining 8 years of our presence. Analysts are getting lathered up about Libyan SAMs, but I suspect the true impact in the region and the world will be just about as limited as it was in the wake of Iraq' collapse.

They may or may not be capable of being fired from the shoulder as of this moment. Iranian engineers are pretty capable. But whether they are or not is immaterial to the degree of threat that they pose. They can be fired from the back of a pickup truck, and those can get just about anywhere. The guys who fire the missiles from the shoulder, I would guess, drive to their firing point in a pickup truck.

SA-7s and SA-14s are not SA-18s which are not SA-24s. Comparing an SA-7 to a SA-24 is sort of like comparing a Brown Bess to a Bren Gun. SA-7s and 14s has resulted in what we have had which we have been obviously able to live with. We don't know if we can live with the 24s yet. It is the top of the line Russki small anti-aircraft missile. We would be very worried if the latest iteration of the Stinger got out. This is maybe the same.

These missiles getting out is a very big deal. The threat is not only the immediate one posed by the missiles themselves. They will be reverse engineered by Iran and Red China and maybe even the North Koreans and Pakistan. This is not a good thing for the future.

SWJ Blog
11-03-2012, 07:50 PM
What is Hezbollah’s Role in the Syrian Crisis? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/what-is-hezbollah%E2%80%99s-role-in-the-syrian-crisis)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

SWJ Blog
11-05-2012, 10:13 AM
Chairman Mao vs. President Assad: People’s War in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/chairman-mao-vs-president-assad-people%E2%80%99s-war-in-syria)

Entry Excerpt:



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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

AdamG
11-08-2012, 09:55 PM
Slaughtering prisoners video

http://news.yahoo.com/video/prisoner-shot-dead-syrian-rebels-151814189.html

Bill Moore
11-12-2012, 09:57 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/syria-opposition-coalition-military-aid


The Syrian opposition says it has been promised western military support in return for forming a united front, in advance of a donors' conference in London on Friday intended to consolidate the new rebel coalition.


"The international community realises the situation in Syria is unsustainable and that its own self-interest is at stake as it destabilises the region," said Yaser Tabbara, a coalition spokesman. "We have assuaged a lot of the concerns and fulfilled a lot of preconditions on the Syrian armed opposition in terms of accountability and unity, and I believe the international community is ready to invest in the opposition both militarily and politically. That is the sense we got in Doha."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121112175539534504.html


The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) has said its six member states decided to recognise the newly formed National Coalition of the Syrian opposition as the "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.



"But the Arab League stopped short of recognising it as the sole representative of the Syrian people," our correspondent said. "Rather it recognised the coalition [as representing] the 'aspirations' of the Syrian people."

"The coaliton was given observer status [at the Arab League]. They haven't yet been offered the chair left empty since Assad was no longer welcome. So observer status is a good first step."

Amazing, immediately following our national election a coalition is recognized. This will lead somewhere, but where nobody knows.

Dayuhan
11-12-2012, 11:05 PM
This:


"I believe the international community is ready to invest in the opposition both militarily and politically."

sounds well short of this:


The Syrian opposition says it has been promised western military support

"Western" is pretty vague... who would be in a position to make promises on behalf of "the West"? Without some indication of what was promised and by who, the story doesn't mean much.

Bill Moore
11-13-2012, 05:58 AM
Dayuhan, if you want to mimic the three monkeys (say no evil, hear no evil, see no evil) that is your choice. However, the US among others have been pushing for this consolidation for months (multiple open source reports/public statements). They skillfully executed by encouraging a multilateral regional organization do the overt work, but aid will be increased, both lethal and non-lethal from the West. We'll increase non-lethal aid immeidately, and I suspect France will increase lethal aid near immediately through the regional partners. Hopefully we'll be able to facilitate whatever we're trying to accomplish without putting combat forces on the ground, at least in substantial numbers. Many claimed the Libya approach failed, I disagree, it ousted Qaddafi without getting US and other Western troops tied down in another quagmire. It was a hybrid form of UW with conventional forces playing a substantial UW role. British and French Special Forces provided assistance on the ground, as well as Qatar if the media reports are accurate.

Moving on

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/11/200435.htm


The United States congratulates the representatives of the Syrian people on the formation of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. We look forward to supporting the National Coalition as it charts a course toward the end of Assad’s bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future that all the people of Syria deserve. We will work with the National Coalition to ensure that our humanitarian and non-lethal assistance serves the needs of the Syrian people. We also commend the Government of Qatar for its steadfast leadership and support of this conference.

http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-election-over-u-cautiously-mulls-syria-options-000942429.html

Analysis: Election over, U.S. cautiously mulls Syria options


"I'm amazed by how quickly people have started talking about Syria" after the election, said Joseph Holliday, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and expert on the Syrian opposition at the Institute for the Study of War who frequently briefs American officials.


The new united rebel leadership announced this weekend in Doha - the result of months of pressure from western states and Arab allies - is also seen as offering the best hope so far that the opposition can form a united front.


Long-term Assad supporter Russia, some experts say, may be tiring of the Syrian leader. Moscow might have little appetite for Western-backed overthrow of Assad, but it also wants to make sure it retains influence with any government that replaces him.


The opportunity now, rebel supporters say, is for a much more coordinated strategy perhaps led by Washington.

They "are waiting for the West," Salman Shaikh, a former adviser to the Qatari royal family and now director of the Brookings Doha Center, said via video link. "They don't want to be in this alone. Only the U.S. can bring this about."

davidbfpo
11-13-2012, 06:48 AM
The title of the article on the Doha summit is 'Syrians in the Sheraton; a lesson in time wasting', a rather pithy commentary - with some odd asides:http://www.opendemocracy.net/michael-stephens/syrians-in-sheraton-lesson-in-time-wasting


So what can we read from this whole saga? The short answer is that the SNC are being side-lined, and they know it, and this is why they played for time. The Riad Seif initiative was a threat to their previous hegemonic control over the Syrian opposition, and they have fought for every inch they can to maintain as much of a foothold as possible in the new plan. Backed heavily by Qatar and the USA, the SNI is the only realistic plan forward at this current point. It brings together military personnel with politicians and other exiles to try and forge a coalition that can speak for Syria’s beleaguered people.

Behind all the "spin" and diplomacy the fact remains that the USA does not want to get involved in the Syrian civil war. The Assad regime is hanging on.

Dayuhan
11-13-2012, 07:14 AM
This sounds to me like the three monkeys approach combined with a heavily rose-tinted set of lenses:


We look forward to supporting the National Coalition as it charts a course toward the end of Assad’s bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future that all the people of Syria deserve.

This sounds downright horrifying:


The opportunity now, rebel supporters say, is for a much more coordinated strategy perhaps led by Washington.

And this sounds fairly pragmatic, noting that it makes no specific reference to anything being promised:


They "are waiting for the West," Salman Shaikh, a former adviser to the Qatari royal family and now director of the Brookings Doha Center, said via video link. "They don't want to be in this alone. Only the U.S. can bring this about."

I agree that the Libyan intervention was not a failure: as you say, it accomplished the objective of removing Gaddafi without committing the US to a ground presence or another miserable state-building effort, and achieving an objective is not failure. Syria isn't Libya, though, and like David I don't see the US wanting to be involved in any major way. Possibly in a limited role, if there's a way to achieve the objective without commitment to another miserable state-building effort, but that's a big "if".

davidbfpo
11-13-2012, 11:29 PM
The title was my very short comment a few posts back. In support is FP Blog's piece:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/12/the_survivor?page=full

davidbfpo
11-16-2012, 04:00 PM
A "lurker" has recommended Malik Al-Abdeh, a London-based Syrian journalist's blogsite for insight on matters Syrian:http://syriaintransition.com/

His latest piece in outline:
The course of Syria's revolution since its idealistic early days has been a painful learning experience for many young activists

Good insight here:
A candid look at Syria today reveals a picture of tribal selfishness masquerading as populist nationalism; little wonder that scheming politicians, local toughs and extremists of every kind have prospered, and why violence, vulgarity and bravado have become the order of the day.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/malik-al-abdeh/syria-activists-grow-up

Stan
11-16-2012, 05:26 PM
You folks are killing me these days :D

If we go just a smiggin deeper (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/11/200495.htm) at the State address, you get this:


... this additional assistance from the United States will provide food supplies, hot meals, and food vouchers for families who have fled the violence in Syria. This additional assistance will be provided through the World Food Program (WFP), which

The WFP is the logistical arm of the UN (for those that didn't know).
As for the Western assistance, we can't even get visas for humanitarian ops. AND, let's say we did get visas, who at the checkpoints would give a hoot :rolleyes:

From this end of the boondocks all I can say is we are in a holding pattern with promises of cash, vaccinations (too many to count) and maybe a light armored vehicle :cool:

Regards, Stan

SWJ Blog
11-23-2012, 11:10 AM
The Battle of the Supply Lines in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-battle-of-the-supply-lines-in-syria)

Entry Excerpt:



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davidbfpo
11-23-2012, 03:15 PM
An interesting analysis of recent YouTube footage of Syrian insurgents with looted MANPADS; alas the author's credentials are not revealed, but they appear to know enough. There are a number of videos embedded too:http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/videos-show-complete-complete-sa-7.html

There's also a comment on recycling cluster bomblets by the insurgents:http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/unexploded-cluster-bomblets-repurposed.html

davidbfpo
11-29-2012, 04:23 PM
A flurry of Tweets this afternoon, citing PA:
2 US-based Internet-monitoring companies say Syria has shut off Internet nationwide

Citing WaPO:
100 percent of Syria's Internet has just shut down

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/29/web-monitor-100-percent-of-syrias-internet-just-shut-down/

Plus:
Apparently,#Syria just went off line …I hear mobiles are also down....All 84 of #Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet.

Link:http://www.renesys.com/eventsbulletin/2012/11/SY-1354184790.html

Why now? Is it the regime or the opposition?

AdamG
11-29-2012, 09:22 PM
The Syrian government has blamed "terrorists" for the disconnection.
"The terrorists targeted the internet lines, resulting in some regions being cut off," Syria's minister of information told a pro-government television station.

According to activists, it has been known for similar communication cuts to occur in isolated areas before military operations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20546302

AdamG
11-30-2012, 06:58 PM
Syria's information minister claims that the Damascus government had nothing to do with the communications shutdown. "It is not true that the state cut the internet. The terrorists targeted the internet lines, resulting in some regions being cut off," Reuters quotes him as saying.

That's rather unlikely, the web performance company CloudFlare notes in a blog post. "Syria has four physical cables that connect it to the rest of the internet. Three are undersea cables that land in the city of Tartous, Syria. The fourth is an over-land cable through Turkey. In order for a whole-country outage, all four of these cables would have had to been cut simultaneously."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/30/syria-offline

AdamG
12-04-2012, 04:50 AM
Engineers working for the Assad regime in Syria have begun combining the two chemical precursors needed to weaponize sarin gas, an American official with knowledge of the situation tells Danger Room. International observers are now more worried than they’ve even been that the Damascus government could use its nerve agent stockpile to slaughter its own people.

The U.S. doesn’t know why the Syrian military made the move, which began in the middle of last week and is taking place in central Syria. Nor are they sure why the Assad government is transferring some weapons to different locations within the country, as the New York Times reported on Monday.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/syria-chemical-weapons-3/

AdamG
12-06-2012, 07:00 AM
The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said.

As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/05/15706380-syria-loads-chemical-weapons-into-bombs-military-awaits-assads-order?lite

davidbfpo
12-06-2012, 11:27 AM
Given the mixed, even contrary reporting on Syrian chemical weapons I am not sure what is going on.

Sometimes I suspect it is a "fig leaf" for enhancing Western diplomacy and reducing the leverage China, Iran and Russia have. You can almost hear the official statement "We had to act, Bashir was about to use CW"; maybe even a spectacular UN presentation?

Enduring America notes:
on chemical weapons, Lavrov suggested that Assad would not use them, and this would be a "red line" for Russia as well:

“For us, any violations of international agreements in this area are unacceptable," Lavrov stressed.

Link:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2012/12/5/egypt-syria-and-beyond-live-coverage-the-protests-surge-but.html

Shashank Joshi questions whether CW is useful; it is July 2012 and may have been posted before:http://shashankjoshi.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/are-chemical-weapons-effective/

I have not been following Syria closely and had missed this:
For starters, the fall of Deir Ez Zor will free up large waves of (largely Iraqi) insurgents to attack to the north....Furthermore, the sudden emergence of large numbers of Iraqi fighters, many of them radical, in the east is concerning

Yes Bashir's regime is getting more ruthless, notably in using air power in urban areas; such as a MIG-23:http://theaviationist.com/2012/12/05/mig23-attack/#.UMB5zuTtT0f

There are also reports of Grad rockets being used; when will we see Scud SSM being used?

AdamG
12-06-2012, 02:09 PM
The West is aware that its’ claims about the threat from the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons does not stand up to scrutiny, the Russian government has said.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/russia-west-exaggerating-syrias-chemical-weapons-threat-16246644.html#ixzz2EHQ1baVx


The Russian Foreign Ministry has told its NATO partners that it hopes there will be no attempts at military intervention in Syria.

Lavrov advanced Russia’s firm position on Syria after a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels on Tuesday.

"We hope there will be no foreign interference," he said.

http://rt.com/politics/syria-russia-chemical-weapons-nato-lavrov-314/

davidbfpo
12-06-2012, 04:51 PM
By Shashank Joshi
A round-up of where we stand on Syrian chemical weapons, and who is claiming what:

Link:http://shashankjoshi.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/chemical-crescendo/

Not much variation in the reporting, clearly based on official briefings.

He also reports via Twitter that Czech CW defence troops are advising the Jordanians:http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/czech-chemical-response-unit-advising-jordan-syrian-threat/

IIRC the Czech military as part of NATO took responsibility for CW defence and their specialised vehicles dominated the market awhile ago.

davidbfpo
12-06-2012, 04:55 PM
A Turkish student @ Kings London comments, drawing upon the known Soviet experience with CW:http://turkeywonk.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/site-security-at-syrian-chemical-weapons-sites-an-educated-guess/

AdamG
12-06-2012, 05:15 PM
The German government said Thursday it had approved participation in a NATO mission to deploy Patriot missiles to help member state Turkey defend its border against Syria and will send up to 400 troops.

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20121206-46609.html#.UMDO13e-XJZ

I think I've seen this movie before... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_d7wa0cxDU)

davidbfpo
12-07-2012, 04:43 PM
From FP one of the better comments on the situation; the title being 'Why Assad Won’t Use His Chemical Weapons; And why you should still be worried':http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/06/why_assad_wont_use_his_chemical_weapons?page=full

Charles Blair ends with:
Were chemical agents to fall into the hands of armed factions battling for control of the nation, the implications would be stark and ominous. So, the United States is right to worry about Syria's chemical weapons -- it may just be worried about them for the wrong reason.

He does say earlier:
The good news is that few terrorist groups would actually be able to use any [chemical] materials they acquired.

AdamG
12-07-2012, 08:50 PM
'Why Assad Won’t Use His Chemical Weapons"

File under "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." - General John Sedgwick, 09 May 1864

AdamG
12-09-2012, 12:16 AM
INSIGHT: How Would Assad Use Chemical Weapons?


The regime could use chemical weapons in a variety of ways, from a limited or demonstration attack to large-scale offensive or defensive use to fundamentally change the military situation. At present, reports that the regime is weaponizing relatively small quantities of agent suggest the former. Limited CW use could be controlled better in terms of effects and visibility. The regime might also find it easier to explain away small-scale strikes as the work of “terrorists” or as a justifiable response to the military situation and the threat to the country.

Read more at Middle East Voices: http://middleeastvoices.voanews.com/2012/12/insight-how-would-assad-use-chemical-weapons-49234/#ixzz2EVZojZ2l

AdamG
12-14-2012, 04:56 AM
Western intelligence agencies observed Syrian units making advanced preparations for the potential use of chemical weapons, including loading trucks with ready-to-use bombs and shells, prompting President Obama last week to warn Syria against using the banned munitions, according to Western and Middle Eastern officials.

Soldiers at one Syrian base were monitored mixing precursors for chemical weapons and taking other steps to ready the lethal munitions for battlefield use, the officials said. It was the first hard evidence that Syria was moving toward possible activation of its vast arsenal of chemical weapons, which includes nerve gas and other poisons.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-on-syrian-troops-readying-chemical-weapons-for-potential-use-prompted-obamas-warning/2012/12/13/389dd7b4-44a2-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html

davidbfpo
12-14-2012, 11:20 AM
A week ago I posted:
when will we see Scud SSM being used?

Yesterday in my catching up on the news I noted a report that Scuds had been launched from Damascus to hit targets to the north (sorry lost link, probably FP).

Given local sensitivities around Scuds I wonder if Syria reassures Israel in particular that a launch will occur and indicate the target area?

davidbfpo
12-16-2012, 08:23 PM
A dissenting article in The Independent by Patrick Cockburn, that set off a flurry of critical Tweets about his accusation that the media were giving a slanted view of what was happening. The bigger story was how a YouTube video was strengthening the Bashir regime; the video is not linked, no doubt due to being horrific.

Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syria-the-descent-into-holy-war-8420309.html

davidbfpo
12-23-2012, 11:01 PM
Russian military advisers are manning some of Syria's more sophisticated air defences – something that would complicate any future US-led intervention...The advisers have been deployed with new surface-to-air systems and upgrades of old systems, which Moscow has supplied to the Assad regime since the Syrian revolution broke out 21 months ago.

(Later) The upgrades were supplied by Moscow, which sees them as a bulwark against western-imposed regime change and protection of a longstanding investment in Syria. The country includes Russia's biggest electronic eavesdropping post outside its territory, in Latakia, and its toehold on the Mediterranean, a small naval base at Tartus.

Link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/23/syria-crisis-russian-military-presence?CMP=twt_fd

Some interesting points, I'm puzzled that no mention IIRC has been made of the ELINT post before. Given the reported lack of regime manpower aqnd apparent desperation one wonders if the air defence network is fully manned.

davidbfpo
12-24-2012, 06:06 PM
Possibly the first use of chemical weapons @ Homs, on Sunday; hat tip to Enduring America:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2012/12/24/syria-analysis-was-toxic-gas-used-in-homs-on-sunday.html

A private, US analytical company concluded:
While by no means certain and harkening back to caveats mentioned earlier, information on hand suggests that the chemical agent used to kill 7 in Homs, Syria, was likely Chlorine Gas, Cyanogen Chloride (CK) or Phosgene Gas (CG). This is a preliminary estimate that will likely change as more evidence comes in.

Full report:http://www.osen-hunter.com/images/osenpdf/pdfs2012/f-l%2012-028%20december%2024.pdf

Given the reported use of unusual explosive devices, such as naval mines, which suggests a measure of desperation and the known, historical capability to manufacture chemical weapons - is this a test of an improvised chemical weapon?

bourbon
12-24-2012, 10:57 PM
Given the reported use of unusual explosive devices, such as naval mines, which suggests a measure of desperation and the known, historical capability to manufacture chemical weapons - is this a test of an improvised chemical weapon?
I imagine they would test such an improvised weapon first on dogs, prisoners and/or livestock first.

However, why bother crossing the CW threshold only to use improvised weapons - when presumably you have a mature chemical weapons program? No sense escalating to the use of chemical weapons only to use something that might work.


I am skeptical of claims by rebel groups in general; and especially on alert over Syria/CW claims, there are forces at play that would like to drag the US into another Middle Eastern conflict.

davidbfpo
12-29-2012, 10:15 PM
Hat tip to Professor Paul Rogers for directing attention to this short, detailed assessment of the options on Syria's chemical weapons in mid-December 2012:http://www.natowatch.org/node/835 and the original WINEP paper from July 2012:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/dealing-with-syrias-chemical-weapons-military-options

Citing an ex-DoD intell analyst:
There are a whole bunch of really bad options here....Sitting back and pushing him not to use them, I think, is the best.

Paul Rogers column ends with:
...more likely that if any action were to be taken against Syrian chemical weapons, Israel would take the decisive action. The Israelis' concern to protect their security, including a determination to prevent radical Islamist groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction, make their position clearer than the US's..... Moreover, Israel's security commitment is so fundamental that it would almost certainly have a lower threshold of “collateral damage” for Syrian civilians than the US.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/syria-weapons-vs-politics

davidbfpo
01-16-2013, 10:41 AM
A leaked US Embassy (Istanbul) report on the alleged use of a chemical weapon is on Twitter, but not in the UK media so far:http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/15/secret_state_department_cable_chemical_weapons_use d_in_syria


Experts say the symptoms match the effects of Agent 15, known also by its NATO code BZ, which is a CX-level incapacitating agent that is controlled under schedule 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria is not a party.

One comment suggested BZ / CX was similar to Mace. CDC says:
BZ toxicity, which might occur by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption, is an anticholinergic syndrome consisting of a combination of signs and symptoms that might include hallucinations; agitation; mydriasis (dilated pupils); blurred vision; dry, flushed skin; urinary retention; ileus; tachycardia; hypertension; and elevated temperature (>101ºF).

Link:http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/bz/casedef.asp

TheCurmudgeon
02-04-2013, 12:14 AM
I believe I mentioned this possibility some time back as one of two possible ways for the US to get sucked into this. Israel attacks Syria based on concerns over chemical weapons going to Jordan - Iran sides with Syria - Iran and Israel get involved directly or indirectly and the west gets dragged screaming and cheering into the fray.


President Assad said on Sunday that last Wednesday's raid "unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil, to destabilise and weaken Syria".

But he said, in a meeting with Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, that his country's military was able to confront "current threats... and aggression".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21311874

davidbfpo
02-06-2013, 03:19 PM
The position of western countries vis--vis the Syrian events is a complex one. But the idea that the west will accept a protracted conflict in order to weaken Syria as a state, exhaust it as a society, and reduce its ability to play a role in the region, is now widespread among the opposition. It is another bleak signal in a conflict without end.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/vicken-cheterian/syrias-activists-politics-of-anger

This is the conclusion of a bitter article citing Syrian exiles and a few left inside Syria. I am not saying it is wrong or right.

On SWC we have debated whether a Western intervention, even another option, yes the UN's "blue berets", could be justified and was practical. We have not IIRC considered the impact of not intervening, especially on the Jihadist legend of an uninterested West, with its human rights etc.

As one Syrian journalist says:
When the revolution started we filmed the violations and documented the repression. We believed that the work of citizen journalists will have an impact, and that the world will come to our aid.

Not that 'We told you and you stood watching' is not uncommon.

J Wolfsberger
02-06-2013, 05:25 PM
Would it be cynical or nasty to point out to them that at least they don't have any Crusader armies on their sacred soil?

We half a$$ed it in Somalia.
Ignored Rwanda.
Toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Went into Iraq (which was only marginally worse than Syria) to howls of disapproval.
Ignored Darfur.
Ignored (and holding) the Great War of Central Africa.
Intervened in Libya, I suspect only because of a growing refugee problem in Southern Europe.
Were dragged kicking and screaming into Mali.

And now these guys are upset that we're not jumping in there to save them in Syria.

Once, burned, twice shy. And third, fourth, fifth and counting - a blithering idiot. It is a tragedy, but this is what the entire world, including a lot of the victims of the current "man caused disaster", wanted.

Color me underwhelmed.

J Wolfsberger
02-06-2013, 05:47 PM
There's this: The Coming War in the Middle East (http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/139881)

TheCurmudgeon
02-06-2013, 06:48 PM
On SWC we have debated whether a Western intervention, even another option, yes the UN's "blue berets", could be justified and was practical. We have not IIRC considered the impact of not intervening, especially on the Jihadist legend of an uninterested West, with its human rights etc.


I am not in favor of intervening, at least not without a UN mandate that included the power to enforce it. The reason I am not in favor is because I don't know if anyone in the West understand the nature of the conflict, the participants, and their ultimate goals. We like to think of these things as democratic revolutions, and to a point, they are revolutions by the population against a particular autocratic leader. But that does not mean that the next leader will be any less autocratic, just supported by a larger portion of the society (ala Egypt). No matter who wins, someone is going to hate us for centuries to come.

So if there is a UN force, it needs to be an Arab or Muslim force. I am pretty certain that westerners do not have a corner on the humanitarian market. But again, there is the rub. Any such force is likely to be biased to one side or the other: to one tribe or sect. So again, I don't see an easy answer.

I would agree with some form of containment - but that does not seem to fit well with all the outsiders intents. Every outside party seems to have their own group they want to support. And again, it would have to be based on international consensus. Probably unlikely.

In the future the conflict may reach a point where it spills over and outsiders are dragged into it. My guess is it will look something like the beginning or WWI. If we are smart, we will see this coming and head it off. But there is a lot of pent-up hatred in that part of the world, as well as long memories. I am not optimistic.

davidbfpo
02-07-2013, 01:00 AM
I fully agree parts of the world, not always Western, have 'stood watching' often for good reasons, including practicality. The episode I researched once was the UK decision not to coerce the white minority regime in Rhodesia, effectively leaving the black nationalists to use coercion to take power.

As long time readers will know I have an interest in how "kith & kin" effects national decision-making and to a far lesser extent coalition and international decisions. Returning to Rhodesia the white minority regime had links back to the UK mainly, only to a particular section of the political spectrum who could be nuisance to some UK governments.

Move forward from 1965-1980 to today. Modern media plus social media can put information, news and the visual image in our homes, mobile phones and computers if we watch the news. A few years ago, including the 'Arab Spring' social media became very fashionable as the 'new revolution'.

I am wondering aloud. What is a successful combination that will get external involvement right up to national government action?

Media access, an interested audience with a long standing "kith & kin" connection which may affect national decision making and a clear national interest worthy of resourcing.

Mali is a good, partial illustration. Some media, not much visual pre-French action; a small 6k presence of French nationals and a French policy of confronting AQ (in their African operational style). Another would be the US action over Grenada, a tiny speck in the Caribbean; little media, in the USA's "backyard", concerns over a "new Cuba" and an all-American (white) student medical school.

There is value in mapping the links and looking at the world or parts of the world that way.

Afghanistan after the Soviet exit aroused very few, not even its neighbours (except Pakistan eventually, creating the Taliban), almost no media (I do recall footage of Scuds being fired at Kabul); certainly no "kith & kin" with access to power - all change after 9/11.

Anyway t'is late and good night.

jmm99
02-07-2013, 03:06 AM
We are now into the 23rd year of the New World Order, dating it from the January 29, 1991 State of the Union Address (http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/poldocs/uspressu/SUaddressGHWBush.pdf):


Halfway around the world, we are engaged in a great struggle in the skies and on the seas and sands. We know why we’re there. We are Americans - part of something larger than ourselves.

For two centuries we’ve done the hard work of freedom. And tonight we lead the world in facing down a threat to decency and humanity.

What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea — a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle, and worthy of our children’s future.

The community of nations has resolutely gathered to condemn and repel lawless aggression. Saddam Hussein’s unprovoked invasion - his ruthless, systematic rape of a peaceful neighbor - violated everything the community of nations holds dear. The world has said this aggression would not stand, and it will not stand.

Together, we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants. The world has answered Saddam’s invasion with 12 United Nations resolutions, starting with a demand for Iraq’s immediate and unconditional withdrawal, and backed up by forces from 28 countries of six continents. With few exceptions, the world now stands as one.

In Steve Metz's excellent case study, Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy (http://www.amazon.com/Iraq-Evolution-American-Strategy-Steven/dp/1597971960) (2008), he states that the post-Cold War strategy had shifted from prevention (containment) to promotion (p.8):


Now the idea was emerging that American power could be used to promote things, including U.S. influence and other values such as the promotion of human rights.

and further (p.31):


The National Security Strategy explicitly rejected the idea that the United States should be the "world's policeman", but advocated a leading role. It was to be semi-collective security, an orchestra with a single maestro.

Based on the eloquent summary of events by John :D:


We half a$$ed it in Somalia.
Ignored Rwanda.
Toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Went into Iraq (which was only marginally worse than Syria) to howls of disapproval.
Ignored Darfur.
Ignored (and holding) the Great War of Central Africa.
Intervened in Libya, I suspect only because of a growing refugee problem in Southern Europe.
Were dragged kicking and screaming into Mali.

it may be that the New World Order Era (for the US) is something of a dead man walking. My crystal ball is quite cracked and doesn't know whether it is so or not. If it is so, I will not eulogize or mourn the passing of the New World Order.

However, if that is so, our political elite owe it to their country and the World to say so. In short, let the orchestra know that the baton up for grabs.

Talking, without doing, does no one any good.

Regards

Mike

wm
02-07-2013, 12:54 PM
I fully agree parts of the world, not always Western, have 'stood watching' often for good reasons, including practicality. The episode I researched once was the UK decision not to coerce the white minority regime in Rhodesia, effectively leaving the black nationalists to use coercion to take power.

As long time readers will know I have an interest in how "kith & kin" effects national decision-making and to a far lesser extent coalition and international decisions. Returning to Rhodesia the white minority regime had links back to the UK mainly, only to a particular section of the political spectrum who could be nuisance to some UK governments.

Move forward from 1965-1980 to today. Modern media plus social media can put information, news and the visual image in our homes, mobile phones and computers if we watch the news. A few years ago, including the 'Arab Spring' social media became very fashionable as the 'new revolution'.

I am wondering aloud. What is a successful combination that will get external involvement right up to national government action?

Media access, an interested audience with a long standing "kith & kin" connection which may affect national decision making and a clear national interest worthy of resourcing.

Mali is a good, partial illustration. Some media, not much visual pre-French action; a small 6k presence of French nationals and a French policy of confronting AQ (in their African operational style). Another would be the US action over Grenada, a tiny speck in the Caribbean; little media, in the USA's "backyard", concerns over a "new Cuba" and an all-American (white) student medical school.

There is value in mapping the links and looking at the world or parts of the world that way.

Afghanistan after the Soviet exit aroused very few, not even its neighbours (except Pakistan eventually, creating the Taliban), almost no media (I do recall footage of Scuds being fired at Kabul); certainly no "kith & kin" with access to power - all change after 9/11.

Anyway t'is late and good night.

David,

I think a significant difference exists in the alignment of kith and kin in the today's world as compared to the world of 1965-1980 that you mentioned. The 20th centurty kith and kin were expatriates from the former colonial power. That is the folks who were subject to danger were related to long term citizens of the contries that might intervene, having come from those countries as part of the colonization process (White Rhodesians, Pied Noir in Algeria, etc). In the 21st century, I think that the position is reversed. Those who tend to ask for help are relatively newly-arrived immigrants from the countries where oppression is occurring. As a result, they tend to have a much less well-entrenched power base to sway political opinion in the governments of the countries that might intervene. Mali looks more like the 20th Century model, in that the 6000 French citizens in Mali reflect something like the old Pied Noir presence. Iraqissomewhat more like the 20th Century model as well: it had rather long standing immigrant/ex-pat communities in the various western nations who have managed to become part of their adopted countries' power bases. Syria is similar, but much less so than Iraq partly, I believe, because Syria was a French protectorate (not a colony) post WWI. Consider the other entities from John W's list where intervention did not occur: Darfur, Rwanda, CAR. How many Westerners with extensive/powerful kith and kin back home have chosen to live/stay there over the last century? And how powerful have those who have emigrated from those countries become, wherever they may now live?

TheCurmudgeon
02-07-2013, 02:48 PM
I fully agree parts of the world, not always Western, have 'stood watching' often for good reasons, including practicality. The episode I researched once was the UK decision not to coerce the white minority regime in Rhodesia, effectively leaving the black nationalists to use coercion to take power.

As long time readers will know I have an interest in how "kith & kin" effects national decision-making and to a far lesser extent coalition and international decisions. Returning to Rhodesia the white minority regime had links back to the UK mainly, only to a particular section of the political spectrum who could be nuisance to some UK governments.



Interesting. I have been doing some research for a paper I want to writing on when we (Western nations in general and the U.S. in particular) choose to go to war. A component of the Liberal Peace Theory (different from the Democratic Peace Theory) is interdependence. The more ties there are between countries the less likely they are to go to war with each other. An unstated corollary is that the more ties you have between countries the more likely one country is to "aid" another country. If there is just enough affinity to the country and there is enough media attention (what used to be called yellow journalism) you can stir up enough interest to get the military involved. If there are no ties (Darfur?) there is not enough interest.

We have an ever expanding list of the reasons to get involved.

The concept of people deserving protection evolved: from the confessional co-religionist, to all fellow Christians, to all human beings. The concept of what was illegitimate evolved: starting with ‘tyranny’ and religious persecution, it then encompassed slavery (which had been a staple of civilized commerce) and ‘uncivilized’ governance; then focused on war crimes, before expanding to crimes ‘against humanity’. The concept of what international society ought to support and maintain evolved, too: from Christendom, to liberty, liberalism, and civilization, then ultimately to universal human rights.Trim, D. B. J. “Humanitarian Interventions”, in “The Changing Character of War” Ed. Strachan, Hew, and Scheipers, Sibylle. 2011. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. pps 157-8.

But we still need a connection to make the suffering real.

It also helps if the people with the connection to the country have connections of their own to the media or the politicians. Then you can create interest.

davidbfpo
02-07-2013, 07:01 PM
From JMM's post in part:
Consider the other entities from John W's list where intervention did not occur: Darfur, Rwanda, CAR. How many Westerners with extensive/powerful kith and kin back home have chosen to live/stay there over the last century? And how powerful have those who have emigrated from those countries become, wherever they may now live?

Darfur before the internal conflict began, amongst 100% Muslim population, had very few Westerners visiting, let alone resident; nor was there a Darfur diaspora, unlike other parts of the Sudan. (I may get some insight from someone who was there before the conflict began).

Rwanda had a very small Western presence, before the conflict began; a mix of French nationals, maybe a few UN types and a scattering of mainly European missionaries (some from Italy & Spain, each sent SOF teams to ask them to get out). There was a diaspora, nearly all in Belgium - which IIRC was a factor in the Belgian military contribution to the UN contingent (which was withdrawn before the genocide began).

CAR (Central African Republic) I know little about. Wiki has two rather general comments:
The Central African Republic is heavily dependent upon multilateral foreign aid and the presence of numerous NGOs which provide services which the government fails to provide....The very presence of numerous foreign personnel and organizations in the country, including peacekeepers and even refugee camps, provides an important source of revenue for many Central Africans.

(Other ethnic groups)...4%, including Europeans of mostly French descent....There are many missionary groups operating in the country, including Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Grace Brethren, and Jehovah's Witnesses. While these missionaries are predominantly from the United States, France, Italy, and Spain, many are also from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other African countries. Many missionaries left the country due to fighting between rebel and government forces in 2002 and 2003. Many have now returned to the country.

Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Republic

My question to American members is whether the policies of the USA, are affected by its changing population mix: more Asiatics (Korea & Phillipines come to mind), the large Hispanic minority; can we leave alone the Jewish community.

TheCurmudgeon
02-07-2013, 08:37 PM
My question to American members is whether the policies of the USA, are affected by its changing population mix: more Asiatics (Korea & Phillipines come to mind), the large Hispanic minority; can we leave alone the Jewish community.

Sadly, I would say no, or at least not in the way one might think. American's don't really think about others unless it somehow ingratiates us. We have our private international relations which seem to be largely economically driven. Since the end of the Cold War we don't care unless there is a business interest. Then we have our public international humanitarian concerns which can be interest group based, but for the life of me I can't think of one national ethnic/diaspora based group (except for the pro-Israeli lobby).

Our humanitarian foreign policy concerns are all celebrity driven. I don't think many American's would know where Darfur was if it were not for George Clooney and Angelina Jolie.

There may have been a greater interest in Nicaragua and Honduras because of the refugees that came here during the war, and I think at least some of our concern for Haiti is based on the number of diaspora here (or because when things get bad there they try to float over here), but I have not noticed a large shift that can be clearly associated with the population change. Hispanics are probably the largest single group that have gained ground both in share of population and in political impact, but I have not noticed an increased interest in foreign policy south of our border. The people who come here are trying to escape whatever they were leaving. This is the home of the self-absorbed. We like those who want to be like us - who want to stay here (hence, an interest in immigration policy). When people do come here to better themselves and then go back to where they came we don't like them and so they don't garner much interest or support. We can't understand why anyone would wan to leave.

I am sure others will have a different take, but sadly that is the way I see it.

The only place I can think of where the diaspora population still influences foreign policy is Cuba. But I am not sure how much of that is the expats and how much is the fact that everyone associates Cuba with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Once more people think of Cuba in terms of cigars then do in terms of the Cold War, I am sure our position will soften.

davidbfpo
02-09-2013, 07:01 PM
An interesting Australian comment by the Lowy Institute:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2013/02/07/The-Syrian-deadlock-(part-2).aspx


The Syrian Army's performance also shows the folly of structuring for the war you think you're going to fight. The Syrian military saw itself fighting a land battle a la Golan Heights 1967, and spent decades lolling around in Lebanon while its senior officers enjoyed the financial benefits of such duties.

Sedentary occupation duties do little for initiative, while a heavy reliance on mechanised forces with an equally heavy reliance on firepower to neutralise concentrations of enemy forces leads one to lean towards using a hammer to swat a fly.

I would differ from this. The Syrian Army in Lebanon (1976-2005) was not entirely on 'sedentary occupation duties', fighting a number of factions and I can recall some comments on how they adapted to street / urban fighting - with snipers, the use of artillery and 'political agents' aka intelligence officers talking to everyone. Some information is on:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_occupation_of_Lebanon

Quite plausible is that the Syrian Army has forgotten this, a not un-common phenomena in all armies. We also know that prior to the First Chechen War ( December 1994 to August 1996) the Russian Army had largely forgotten how to conduct urban operations and would have been an unlikely source of advice then. Having spoken recently to a SME on Chechnya the Russians have been harshly suppressing the insurgency for a long time - so the Syrians clearly may have absorbed the lessons learnt.


The rebels appear to have achieved some degree of coordination, as demonstrated by their focus on attacking Syrian air bases (in recognition of the threat these bases pose).

Bill Moore
02-10-2013, 02:02 AM
I have been reading and hearing the so called experts saying Bashar Assad is going to fall in a matter of weeks for well over a year now. Now this article claims the Syrian Army isn't capable of fighting the rebels because it was training for the wrong war (terribly flawed observation on a number of levels), yet the Syrian military has been holding the line for two years now (more if you consider previous insurgencies in Syria) despite the expert claims they should have failed months ago. Do global liberals who embrace our COIN doctrine and the U.S. view on "The End of History" confuse wishful thinking with reality?

I suspect Assad will eventually fall, but has long has he has control of his military there is little risk that happening in the near term unless there is more foreign intervention. Armies composed of conscripts have been winning conflicts for years despite not being as well trained as professional forces. Put all the political theories aside to include legitimacy and look at the effective application of force and I don't see any side achieving a decisive advantage, and doubt the rebels can gain much more ground without more support, and/or Assad is effectively isolated from external support (Russia, Iran, others). That all changes is Assad loses control of his military much like Mubarak did.

Syria's military has suffered since the collapse the USSR, but it is still a relatively powerful military. The link below compares Syria to Iraq, but the date of the data is questionable.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.asp?form=form&country1=Syria&country2=Iraq&Submit=Compare+Countries

Not a insignificant Army relative to the region or the threat.

http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian-army-capable-military-force-say-sxperts/1212985.html


Experts said President Bashar al-Assad’s army - estimated at between 200,000 and 250,000 troops - is by regional standards a highly-capable military force.

"When you compare it to neighboring states such as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, it is one of the largest forces," said Aram Nerguizian, a Syria expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It does have pockets of excellence."

then back in Sep 2011

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/07/syria-is-much-stronger-than-libya/

Warning: Syria is much stronger than Libya


But Syria is an altogether different target in military terms, too.

First, it’s simply more powerful. Syria’s armed forces are four times the size of Libya’s, and its personnel per capita and total military spending are both one-third higher. President Assad can draw on thousands more tanks than could Colonel Gaddafi (including twice as many advanced T-72s) and a thousand more artillery pieces.


Libyan rebels were divided by tribe, region, ideology and ethnicity. But Syria’s rebels are even more fractured. Lebanon’s prolonged civil war – in which the US, Syria and Israel all intervened – is a cautionary tale: backing one party to a multifaceted conflict is more complex, and possibly counterproductive, than working with a rebel alliance like Libya’s which is at least loosely held together by a political structure and lacking sectarian divisions.


Finally, it is worth thinking through the implications of a loyal army. Syria’s elite units and officer corps are dominated by the Alawi sect, to which the Assad dynasty belongs. They have neither disintegrated nor turned on Assad. In Libya, a very large portion of the army, particularly in the east, melted away at the beginning of the conflict.

TheCurmudgeon
02-10-2013, 03:52 PM
I have been reading and hearing the so called experts saying Bashar Assad is going to fall in a matter of weeks for well over a year now. Now this article claims the Syrian Army isn't capable of fighting the rebels because it was training for the wrong war (terribly flawed observation on a number of levels), yet the Syrian military has been holding the line for two years now (more if you consider previous insurgencies in Syria) despite the expert claims they should have failed months ago. Do global liberals who embrace our COIN doctrine and the U.S. view on "The End of History" confuse wishful thinking with reality?

I suspect Assad will eventually fall, but has long has he has control of his military there is little risk that happening in the near term unless there is more foreign intervention. Armies composed of conscripts have been winning conflicts for years despite not being as well trained as professional forces. Put all the political theories aside to include legitimacy and look at the effective application of force and I don't see any side achieving a decisive advantage, and doubt the rebels can gain much more ground without more support, and/or Assad is effectively isolated from external support (Russia, Iran, others). That all changes is Assad loses control of his military much like Mubarak did.

Syria's military has suffered since the collapse the USSR, but it is still a relatively powerful military. The link below compares Syria to Iraq, but the date of the data is questionable.

I have to agree that Assad is not going anywhere unless things outside his domain change (i.e. loss of support from Russia and Iran). Our interests here are containment, not intervention.

I will only disagree that legitimacy does not matter. I would argue that there is more than one type of legitimacy and Assad had done a very good job of cultivating a traditional ethnic Patron/Client system. He, is, for all intents and purposes, the King of Syria. This is a different tact then take by some self-styled leftist leaders who try to portray themselves as populists leaders in societies are still based on tribal/ethnic/religious ideas.

Bill Moore
02-10-2013, 05:56 PM
I have to agree that Assad is not going anywhere unless things outside his domain change (i.e. loss of support from Russia and Iran). Our interests here are containment, not intervention.

I will only disagree that legitimacy does not matter. I would argue that there is more than one type of legitimacy and Assad had done a very good job of cultivating a traditional ethnic Patron/Client system. He, is, for all intents and purposes, the King of Syria. This is a different tact then take by some self-styled leftist leaders who try to portray themselves as populists leaders in societies are still based on tribal/ethnic/religious ideas.

Exactly, there are different types of legitimacy and one size doesn't fit all, especially in countries composed of competing tribes, ethnic groups, and religious ideas (we can add economic philosophies also). Mike from Hilo pointed this out on a recent post in the SWJ Blog where he corrected some folks who implied Ho was legitimate and the Gov of S. Vietnam wasn't. S. Vietnamese forces actually fought hard after we left because they didn't want to fall under the "legitimate" rule of Uncle Ho. My point is the ability to apply force matters, and if the government retains control of their military and police then the vague concept of legitimacy (legitimacy for who?) often takes a back seat. On the rebel side which group is legitimate? Those who are affilated with AQ? The fundamentalists who want to suppress the Shia? There is a reason the military isn't deserting in droves, they're scared to death of what will happen if these extremists take over.

Dayuhan
02-11-2013, 12:16 AM
Mike from Hilo pointed this out on a recent post in the SWJ Blog where he corrected some folks who implied Ho was legitimate and the Gov of S. Vietnam wasn't. S. Vietnamese forces actually fought hard after we left because they didn't want to fall under the "legitimate" rule of Uncle Ho. My point is the ability to apply force matters, and if the government retains control of their military and police then the vague concept of legitimacy (legitimacy for who?)

Legitimacy is not an all-or-nothing construct; a Government is not 100% "legitimate" or "illegitimate". There's little doubt that Ho's successful expulsion of the French endowed him and his movement with a substantial perception of legitimacy. That perception was not universal, especially among those who had a personal vested interest in maintaining the dwindling perception of their own legitimacy, but it was sufficient to attract support and sustain his movement until those who opposed him saw their own perceived legitimacy dwindle (largely through their own actions) to an unsustainable level.

Certainly the capacity to apply force matters, but that capacity, as well as the ability to sustain that capacity through foreign and local support, depends largely on how the balance of perceived legitimacy shifts. That was true in Vietnam and it's true in Afghanistan or Syria.

Bill Moore
02-11-2013, 01:54 AM
Legitimacy is not an all-or-nothing construct; a Government is not 100% "legitimate" or "illegitimate". There's little doubt that Ho's successful expulsion of the French endowed him and his movement with a substantial perception of legitimacy. That perception was not universal, especially among those who had a personal vested interest in maintaining the dwindling perception of their own legitimacy, but it was sufficient to attract support and sustain his movement until those who opposed him saw their own perceived legitimacy dwindle (largely through their own actions) to an unsustainable level.

Certainly the capacity to apply force matters, but that capacity, as well as the ability to sustain that capacity through foreign and local support, depends largely on how the balance of perceived legitimacy shifts. That was true in Vietnam and it's true in Afghanistan or Syria.

I question Uncle Ho's legitimacy on a lot of levels. I don't distract from what he accomplished, but challenge the common perception of how he accomplished it.

http://www.historynet.com/ho-chi-minh-north-vietnam-leader.htm


First, however, Ho ruthlessly consolidated his power in the North. Evidencing the fact that behind his carefully constructed faade of the kindly and gentle 'Uncle Ho' he was in reality (in Susan Sontag's particularly descriptive words) a 'fascist with a human face,' Ho massacred his countrymen by the thousands in a Soviet-style 'land reform' campaign. In November 1956, when peasants in his home province protested, some 6,000 were murdered in cold blood. With such actions, Ho proved he was a worthy contemporary of Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, who had also built their empires with the blood of their countrymen.

How legitimate were the communists in S. Vietnam?

http://vnafmamn.com/fighting/massacre_athue.html


Besides more than two thousand persons whose deaths were confirmed after the revelation of the mass graves, the fate of the others, amounted to several thousands, are still unknown.The 1968 massacre in Hue brought a sharp turn in the common attitude toward the war. A great number of the pre-'68 fence sitters, anti-war activists, and even pro-Communist people, took side with the South Vietnamese government after the horrible events. After April 30, 1975 when South Vietnam fell into the hand of the Communist Party, it seems that the number of boat people of Hue origin takes up a greater proportion among the refugees than that from the other areas.


Most people heard of My Lai atrocity, but a few would know of Hue massacre. Today some Hanoi's sympathyzers have even tried to whitewash the war crime by saying the Hue massacre never happened. It sounds just like the neo-nazis saying the Holocaust is a myth. The two following articles will offer you a better perspective (thanks to the recent opening of LIFE photo's archive, we found the original pictures of Hue massacre related photos that were thought ever lost).

http://vnafmamn.com/VNWar_atrocities.html


Hue Massacre, 1968, when the VC/NVA systematically executed as many as 5,000 civil servants, teachers, etc. who were sytematically rounded up and executed, some buried alive in mass graves, some tied up and shot in the back of the head, around Hue City during 25 day NVA occupation of the city-NO entries.
Of course after S. Vietnam surrendered the S. Vietnamese must have celebrated in the streets that they were finally liberated.

http://www.matus1976.com/vietnam/free_vietnam.htm


As is usual with communist governments, the losers faired horribly. The killing did not end with the surrender of South Vietnam in 1975, a year after the congressional abandonment of Indochina by the US. Uprisings continued in the south where another 160,000 lives were lost. In fact, more lives were lost in the six months following the fall of Saigon then were lost in the entire war! Vietnam was invaded by Cambodia and China, and in turn Vietnam invaded Cambodia and Laos. The total killed is estimated to be at 150,000 and, amazingly, an estimated 3 million were killed by the Vietnam governments proxy regimes.

...In fact, more lives were lost in the six months following the fall of Saigon then were lost in the entire war!
Vietnamese concentration camps, deportations to 'new economic zones', and the people rounded up and shot for various reasons has been estimated to be 250,000. A quarter of a million people.

One of the most telling signs of the brutality of the North Vietnamese Communist party was the fleeing of nearly 1 million Vietnamese people, most took of into the South China sea in make shift rafts. Of these "Boat People" it is estimated that nearly 500,000 drowned trying to escape this murderous regime.

Who are the good guys in Syria again? How much do we really understand the actors, their objectives, their legitimacy? Once we start, if we start, to get involved we will heroify and villianfy the various actors and that will skew our true understanding. Once we realize no good will come out of our involvement and we tire of treading water we'll withdraw and let history take its course. I have no compelling evidence we should pick a side at this time. We may have to intervene for other reasons, and we may desire to create safe havens for the refugees, but until we understand what the heck is really going on we shouldn't leap.

Dayuhan
02-11-2013, 02:22 AM
I'm not talking about legitimacy in the abstract, or about our perception of legitimacy, but of domestic perceptions of legitimacy.

In countries where colonial occupiers or hated dictators have to be expelled by force, those who did the expelling typically earned a significant perception of legitimacy simply by expelling the colonial power or hated dictator. In many cases those governments did perfectly awful things: taking power through armed struggle often means that the most ruthless and aggressive people in the movement end up running it. The awfulness of what those governments did when they gained power does not change the reality that success against an occupying colonial power or hated dictator does typically - at least initially - earn a movement a significant degree of perceived legitimacy. Similarly, those who supported the colonial power typically earn a degree of illegitimacy, even if they are in many ways more able to run the country.

One of our consistent problems in the Cold War in the developing world was identifying conflicts as "communist vs non-communist" while local populaces identified the same conflict as "colonial power vs national liberation movement" or "detested dictator vs those who fight the dictator" or "foreign intruder vs local resistance", with very little emphasis on or understanding of whether anyone was a communist or not. While for us the identity of those who were "communist" was of surpassing importance, it often meant very little to those who saw the insurgent as the enemy of their enemy.

TheCurmudgeon
02-11-2013, 12:31 PM
I'm not talking about legitimacy in the abstract, or about our perception of legitimacy, but of domestic perceptions of legitimacy.

In countries where colonial occupiers or hated dictators have to be expelled by force, those who did the expelling typically earned a significant perception of legitimacy simply by expelling the colonial power or hated dictator. In many cases those governments did perfectly awful things: taking power through armed struggle often means that the most ruthless and aggressive people in the movement end up running it. The awfulness of what those governments did when they gained power does not change the reality that success against an occupying colonial power or hated dictator does typically - at least initially - earn a movement a significant degree of perceived legitimacy.

I don't think successfully throwing out a colonial regime earns you legitimacy. In the initial phase of the fight it will earn you an allegiance in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way, but that is a far cry from legitimacy, as the events after the fall of the colonial regime often prove. Once the common enemy is gone then the true beliefs and their associated loyalties and legitimacy show themselves. By then, it is often too late.

What it can earn you is respect: the kind of respect born out of fear. That can be turned into power, but it is still not legitimacy. We had the power after the fall of Saddam but we were not going to use it as some others (i.e. Ho) would to consolidate their governments. As you say, no government (even, or perhaps especially, the U.S.) garners legitimacy from 100% of its population. Of course, it is easier to up your legitimacy numbers if you simply kill off those people who don't see you as legitimate - a method you are unlikely to see in the new, updated 5-34.


Similarly, those who supported the colonial power typically earn a degree of illegitimacy, even if they are in many ways more able to run the country.

This just goes to prove that efficiency does not create legitimacy, despite what some of our current COIN ideas tend to espouse.

bourbon
02-18-2013, 01:38 AM
How to Start a Battalion (in Five Easy Lessons) (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/ghaith-abdul-ahad/how-to-start-a-battalion-in-five-easy-lessons), by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. London Review of Books, Vol. 35 No. 4 · 21 February 2013.

So how do you form a battalion in Syria? First, you need men, most likely young men from the countryside, where the surplus of the underemployed over the centuries has provided for any number of different armies and insurgencies. Weapons will come from smugglers, preferably via Iraq or Turkey. You will also need someone who knows how to operate a laptop and/or a camcorder and can post videos on the internet – essential in applying for funds from the diaspora or Gulf financiers. A little bit of ideology won’t hurt, probably with a hint of Islamism of some variety. You’ll also need money, but three or four thousand dollars should be enough to start you off.
Very interesting article. Key take away:

For decades, the dictatorship in Syria worked to stamp the people into submission.... So when these systems of control collapsed, something exploded inside people, a sense of individualism long suppressed. Why would I succumb to your authority as a commander when I can be my own commander and fight my own insurgency? Many of the battalions dotted across the Syrian countryside consist only of a man with a connection to a financier, along with a few of his cousins and clansmen. They become itinerant fighting groups, moving from one battle to another, desperate for more funds and a fight and all the spoils that follow.

Dayuhan
02-18-2013, 08:15 AM
This doesn't seem to add up:


Weapons will come from smugglers, preferably via Iraq or Turkey...

...three or four thousand dollars should be enough to start you off.

Unless weapons are very very cheap, the smugglers are very very generous, or the "batallion" is very very small.

bourbon
02-18-2013, 11:36 AM
This doesn't seem to add up:

Unless weapons are very very cheap, the smugglers are very very generous, or the "batallion" is very very small.
Had you even read the article - or even the second highlight - you would understand that is the entire crux of the article.

Bill Moore
02-19-2013, 12:44 AM
How to Start a Battalion (in Five Easy Lessons) (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/ghaith-abdul-ahad/how-to-start-a-battalion-in-five-easy-lessons), by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. London Review of Books, Vol. 35 No. 4 · 21 February 2013.

Very interesting article. Key take away:

I think the key aways were:


Until recently, Colonel Riad al-Asad, the nominal head of the FSA, and his fellow defectors from the Syrian army were interned in the Officers’ Camp, a special refugee camp in southern Turkey – for their protection, the Turks say. All meetings and interviews with the defecting colonel had to go through Turkish intelligence. Towards the end of last year the FSA announced that it had moved its headquarters to the Syrian side of the border, in an attempt to prove its relevance. But battalions are still formed by commanders working and fighting on their own initiative across Syria, arming themselves via many different channels and facing challenges unique to their towns and villages. For these people the colonel was just a talking head and a stooge of the Turks, and the FSA not much more than a label.

A couple of Americans getting ready to get played


Ali Dibo turned to another supplicant. ‘All I want from you is a short video that you can put on YouTube, stating your name and your unit and that you are part of the Aleppo military council. Then you can go do whatever you want. I just need to show the Americans that units are joining the council. I met two Americans yesterday, and they told me we won’t get any advanced weapons until we show we’re united under the leadership of the officers in the military councils. Just shoot the video and let me handle the rest.’

As for the cost of arms, market dynamics are clearly in play.


As Syrian Uprising Escalates, Business Booms for Lebanon's Arms Dealers
May 2011


"There is an arms selling frenzy," says Abu Rida, "and it's all going to Syria. All of it." He added that weapons also are flowing into Syria from Iraq. The most sought after weapons are assault rifles — the ubiquitous AK-47, and variants of the M-16. A good quality Russian Kalashnikov, known in the Lebanese trade as a "Circle 11" from the imprint stamped on its metalwork, today fetches $1,600 — a $400 increase from a month ago. In 2006, the same weapon only cost around $500 or $600. The M4 assault rifle fitted with grenade launcher, a weapon commonly carried by U.S. troops, costs $15,000. Another popular weapon is a short-barreled AK-47 known locally as the "Bin Laden" because the former al-Qaeda chief routinely used one as a prop in his videos. The "Bin Laden" costs $3,750, up almost 20 percent from last month.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0109/As-Syria-unravels-prices-soar-for-guns-grenades-and-RPGs

As Syria unravels, prices soar for guns, grenades, and RPGs Jan 2012

RPG prices double; grenade prices quadruple


The price of a good quality Russian AK-47 assault rifle has almost doubled in the past 10 months from around $1,100 to $2,100. A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher cost $900 last March and a single grenade was priced at around $100. Today an RPG launcher is worth $2,000 and each grenade $500.

“The prices are crazy. And it’s all going to Syria,” Abu Rida says. “The market is so strong that ordinary people are selling their rifles to make a quick profit.”

And we're going to teach these people about entrepreuneurship? :D

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/01/syrias-war-0

The axis power JAN 2012


Jamal al-Ward, a member of the coalition who liaises with the rebel fighters, reckons that fewer than 20% of their weapons are being supplied from outside Syria; most, he says, are bought on the black market or have been captured from military bases. The fighters’ morale has been dented and they are becoming still more fractious. Rebel units argue over their share of booty. A battle under way for six weeks to capture Minagh military airport outside Aleppo involves 13 different groups. None will want to go home empty-handed.


In this atmosphere, Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group with its own evidently abundant sources of cash, has expanded its reach. In rural areas, people continue to support local fighting units, since they are made up of their sons, husbands and fathers. But in Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub, and in Deir ez-Zor desperate residents are increasingly turning to Jabhat al-Nusra, because it is the most effective group at hand, though many reject its ideology. One rebel commander says that most battalions are preparing for a reckoning with Jabhat al-Nusra, were Mr Assad to fall.

The market always seems to find a way if there are customers able to pay. This touches upon our concern with the nexus of transnational organized crime, terrorism, insurgents, and state actors, and how that creates new challenges we're not prepared to deal with due to organizational shortfalls and outdated policies.

SethB
02-19-2013, 08:05 AM
I can see why they would want us to supply them with weapons.

davidbfpo
02-25-2013, 09:22 PM
A few updates, some of uncertain veracity, others from reliable sources.

Via Twitter a purported film of Chechen fighters in Syria, that is on You Tube. IIRC reports of Chechen fighters outside the Caucasus have appeared before, who have reputation for fighting almost of mythological status. Links:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYXy_0t0Qc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-IICOi5t1M&feature=youtube_gdata_player

There are small Chechen communities in Jordan and Syria - so probably not from the Caucasus.

Syria's regime have used Scud SSM before, it now appears a number have been fired at rebel-held districts of Aleppo:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21563669

Finally there is a Bruce Reidel commentary:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/23/al-nusra-al-qaeda-s-syria-offensive.html

TheCurmudgeon
02-27-2013, 01:53 PM
I don't think successfully throwing out a colonial regime earns you legitimacy. In the initial phase of the fight it will earn you an allegiance in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way, but that is a far cry from legitimacy, as the events after the fall of the colonial regime often prove. Once the common enemy is gone then the true beliefs and their associated loyalties and legitimacy show themselves. By then, it is often too late.

An example from Syria


A recent confrontation between liberal protesters and Islamists in the northwestern Syrian city of Saraqeb, which was caught on video, set off a heated online debate. These weekly demonstrations have become a battle of symbols. Most demonstrators carry the green, red, black and white flag that was adopted by the secular opposition in the early days of the revolt.
But these days, a black banner also flutters at Friday demonstrations. It represents Salafists who embrace an ultraconservative brand of Islam that is new in Syria.The chants and counterchants are telling: The secular liberals shout for unity, freedom and a civil state. Democracy is what they say they want.The Islamists turn up the volume with calls for religious rule. An Islamic state is what they demand.http://www.npr.org/2013/02/27/172989072/syrian-rebels-secular-and-islamist-both-claim-the-future?ft=1&f=1001

The Islamists and the Secularist are fighting a common enemy, but they have two completely different concepts of what a legitimate government should consist of.

The basics of this cultural transition can be seen in almost all of the Arab Spring states as well as places like Thailand where royalists fight democracy advocates.(http://www.economist.com/node/15719095)

The history of each country adds unique flavors to these fights, but they are founded in human nature. They represent a transition from a belief in collective identity to individualistic identity. The use of force is only one tool, and one of limited "utility".

davidbfpo
02-28-2013, 09:03 PM
From Jihadica:
Read in full, Shumukh’s “comprehensive strategy” for Syria presents an unmistakably grim prognostication for jihadism’s future in Syria—indeed a grim prognostication for Syria’s future in general. It is an attempt to think realistically about the challenges to true jihadi success in Syria in the coming months and years.

Link to a summary and a translation:http://www.jihadica.com/al-qaeda-advises-the-syrian-revolution-shumukh-al-islams-%E2%80%9Ccomprehensive-strategy%E2%80%9D-for-syria/

Interesting contrast with the AQIM document found in Timbucktu; see SWC thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=145038#post145038

Also taking a pessimistic view on events in Syria is Professor Bruce Hoffman, in a short interview, which covers more than Syria:
Al Qaeda sees Syria generally and its unconventional weapons stockpiles in particular as offering the best chance for it to revive its waning fortunes and once again become as threatening and consequential as it appeared in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks. Indeed, I would argue that al Qaeda has pinned its faith and hopes to the demise of the Assad regime and, in turn, its acquisition of deadly weapons from that country’s vast unconventional weapons arsenal.

Link:http://www.middleeast-armscontrol.com/2013/02/19/interview-with-bruce-hoffman-on-todays-global-terrorism-threat/

SWJ Blog
03-11-2013, 04:12 PM
A Divided Society: The Impact of the Syrian Crisis on Lebanon (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/a-divided-society-the-impact-of-the-syrian-crisis-on-lebanon)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/a-divided-society-the-impact-of-the-syrian-crisis-on-lebanon) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
03-12-2013, 09:38 PM
Hat tip to Enduring America, about Turkish working with an AQ affiliate and then using SOF detaining suspects in Syria (not yet noted by the BBC). Last week I noted Croatian weapons being flown to Jordan and onto the Syrian opposition; yes, "money talks" and Croatia today is different from during the Bosnian War.

This morning (0745hrs GMT):
Detentions in Border Bomb Attack. Turkish officials say they have detained five suspects --- four Syrians and one Turkish --- over last month's bomb at a border crossing that killed 14 people. Two of the detainees allegedly staged the attack, at the crossing to Turkey's Hatay Province, while the other three are accusing of aiding and abetting. Officials claims the suspects have revealed that they got paid $35,000 by people connected to Syria’s intelligence agency.

At 1600hrs GMT:
Turkish Special Forces Worked with Al Nusra. Hurriyet...to track down the perpetrators of a January car bombing at a border crossing. The second shocker is that the Turkish Special Forces actually entered Syria, using information acquired by the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat al Nusra, in order to capture the suspects

Link:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2013/3/12/syria-live-coverage-the-bodies-in-aleppos-river-of-martyrs.html#1600

What next?

bourbon
03-13-2013, 12:18 AM
The Guns of Zagreb (http://20committee.com/2013/03/10/the-guns-of-zagreb/). The XX Committee, March 10, 2013.

More answers appeared late this week, again in Jutarnji list, which fleshed out its earlier reporting with a lot more detail. It asserted that between November and February, seventy-five flights out of Pleso secretly brought an astonishing 3,000 tons of weaponry to the Syrian resistance. Much of the weaponry came from Croatian stocks, but some was taken from other European countries too, though which ones is not yet clear. Of greatest significance, the report claimed that the entire operation – which involved Croatia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan, plus some help from the United Kingdom – was orchestrated by the Americans. Zagreb got involved when friends in Washington, DC asked them to. End of story.

TheCurmudgeon
03-18-2013, 12:22 PM
Three Russian warships anchored in Beirut en route to the port of Tartus in Syria, Sky News reported Friday.

According to the report, the ships carry hundreds of Russian soldiers as well as advanced missile systems.The reports have given no information so far regarding the ships’ intent.

Moscow has operated the naval facility at Tartus since signing an agreement with Damascus in 1971. Although it is merely a ship repair and refueling station with a limited military presence, it is the sole remaining Russian military base outside of the former Soviet Union.

In January, a flotilla of five Russian warships laden with hundreds of troops, headed toward Syria, as a show of force meant to deter Western armies from intervening in the war-torn nation, the London-based Sunday Times reported.

Previous reports cited Russian diplomats to the effect that the vessels were being put in place in order to evacuate thousands of Russians who still remained in Syria, if the situation in the country called for it.

However, a Russian intelligence source was quoted in the London Times as saying that the presence of over 300 marines on the ships was meant as a deterrent to keep countries hostile to the Bashar Assad regime — a key ally of the Kremlin — from landing special forces in the country.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/three-russian-warships-headed-for-syrian-

davidbfpo
03-18-2013, 12:34 PM
The Russian 'gunboat diplomacy' is slightly odd. I cannot recall if the January 2013 flotilla actually docked in Syria, one assumes they left after enjoying the delights ashore.

This flotilla I suspect called at Beirut to take on fuel oil, supplies and water. If true that is not a good indicator of the supply situation @ Tartus / Latakia.

Having three hundred naval infantry aboard is 'meant as a deterrent'. Really? With no means of deploying ashore, apart from their own helicopters and trucks ashore. More like a large security detachment to secure the port if an evacuation of Russian nationals is required - long rumoured - but not reported to date.

TheCurmudgeon
03-18-2013, 12:39 PM
I would think it is more likely that they are interested in a NEO operation and in maintaining security on their own instillation. I doubt 300 marines are going to deter anyone. It certainly isn't enough to keep Assad in power. But I do believe they are interested in maintaining the instillation with whomever comes out on top. I am curious how they plan on playing this out.

Madhu
03-18-2013, 03:12 PM
Dr. Stephen Cohen on the John Batchelor show spoke about the Russian domestic situation and the anger many Russians felt at those stranded in various countries when the Soviet Union collapsed. The anger and unease stayed within the domestic psyche, apparently, but this is not an area I know much about. There is a Russian diaspora (some married locally) in the region?

How much of this is directed at the domestic situation and how much is in reaction to various international power plays (including unhappiness over NATO and regime change in Libya, worries over radicalism of the anti-Assad forces and its effects within Russia, etc?)

Link to podcast:

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/podcasts/2013/01/22/third-hour

davidbfpo
03-18-2013, 09:34 PM
Madhu asked:
There is a Russian diaspora (some married locally) in the region?

In the old Syria thread IIRC there was a post on the size of the Russian contingent, civil, military and families - which put the total at 30k. I did try to locate the post, but failed.

TheCurmudgeon
03-19-2013, 05:08 PM
Lets see if this changes anything. My guess is - not unless we can prove it was the Assad regime that used the weapons.

The specter of chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian civil war emerged Tuesday, with the government and rebels each blaming the other for using such munitions.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/world/meast/syria-civil-war/?hpt=hp_t1

davidbfpo
03-25-2013, 08:12 PM
A short report by Alex Thomson, UK C4 reporter, from the Syrian government side of the frontlines:http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/searching-truth-debris/4444


All in all weapons experts would consider chlorine as a not particularly effective chemical weapon in terms of effect, but one ideally suited to home-made weaponising because of factors like its stability and availability.

In short the kind of device that conventional armies would not be interested in, but a militia group might just be.

Bill Moore
03-26-2013, 07:14 AM
A short report by Alex Thomson, UK C4 reporter, from the Syrian government side of the frontlines:http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/searching-truth-debris/4444

That would make sense based on the available information. AQI used Chlorine weapons a few times during OIF, but these attacks were largely unsuccessful, so AQ may have provided the training to do this to the militia.

TheCurmudgeon
03-28-2013, 11:23 PM
History has shown that in the other "Arab Spring" countries Islamists have taken control after the revolution, is it in the West's best interest to work to keep Assad?

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves ...

jmm99
03-29-2013, 09:03 PM
This tidbit started with a Fox News story, US-born former Army vet known as 'The American' fights alongside Al Qaeda (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/11/muslim-holy-warrior-known-as-american-seen-in-syria/) (by Greg Tepper and Ilan Ben Zion, March 11, 2013):


He's a U.S.-trained soldier turned Muslim warrior who moves between America and countries where the winds of the Arab spring blow, fighting alongside jihadists and America-hating terrorists while celebrating his bloody exploits on YouTube videos.

Eric Harroun, 30, grew up in Phoenix before joining the U.S. Army in 2000. Although Harroun was never deployed during his three-year hitch, he has seen plenty of combat fighting with Syrian rebels and, more recently, Jabhat al-Nusra, a group the U.S. State Department classifies as an alias for Al Qaeda in Iraq. ...

and then amplified in a Foreign Policy piece, The Jihadist from Phoenix - Eric Harroun claims to have joined up with an al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria’s brutal civil war. We tracked him down, but getting the truth was more difficult (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/22/the_jihadist_from_phoenix_eric_harroun?page=full) (by Greg Tepper and Ilan Ben Zion, March 22, 2013):


In mid-January, a video emerged on YouTube of an English-speaking man, wearing a black-and-white kaffiyeh and surrounded by four bearded Arab men, addressing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad directly. "Your days are numbered, you're going down in flames, you should just quit now while you can," he said. "You're going to die no matter what ... we will find you and kill you."

The speaker was Eric Harroun, a white American from Phoenix, Arizona, who hails from a Christian family. He has become a self-described Sunni Muslim, fighting in Syria's brutal civil war -- even, he claimed, joining up with Jabhat al-Nusra, which the State Department has labeled an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq. He served nearly four years in the U.S. Army's 586th Engineering Company, but was never deployed overseas.

In mid-March, a video released by Assad's supporters celebrated the alleged death of "The American" fighting in Syria. But Harroun himself confirmed to us that the rumors were false: In a Skype chat on March 17, he appeared alive and well, and claimed he was staying near the upscale Taksim Square, in Istanbul, Turkey. ...

That piece ends with Harroun's view of drones - the headline to this post.

And, no; Harroun was not "droned", in Syria or in Turkey. Instead, he returned to the US, being met by a kinder and gentler Department of Justice face with criminal complaint (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Harroun-Complaint.pdf) in hand.

The present charge (subject to amendment) alleges a violation of 18 USC 2332a(b) (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2332a), which (inter alia) makes it a crime for a US national to conspire, while abroad, to use "weapons of mass destruction". So, what sort of CBRN weapon was Harroun conspiring to use. None; the weapon alleged was an RPG.

How does one get there ? Here, in material part, 18 USC 2332a(c) (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2332a):


(c) Definitions ... (2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means -
(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title; ...

and 18 USC § 921 - Definitions (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921):


(a) As used in this chapter ...

(4) The term “destructive device” means —

(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas —

(i) bomb,

(ii) grenade,

(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,

(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,

(v) mine, or

(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

(B) any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and

(C) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any destructive device described in subparagraph (A) or (B) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled. ...

This could be a very stiff charge, whether or not Harroun killed or aided in killing anyone:


... shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, and if death results, shall be punished by death, or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.

A charge under the Neutrality Act is a relatively minor offense, 18 USC § 960 - Expedition against friendly nation (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/960):


... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

and one might argue about whether Syria and the US are "at peace".

A charge, closely fitting the FBI declaration, would be under 18 USC § 2339D - Receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2339D); but that again carries a lesser sentence:


... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for ten years, or both.

From Harroun's viewpoint, no good deed goes unpunished.

Regards

Mike

davidbfpo
03-29-2013, 09:42 PM
JMM,

Thanks for providing the US legal definition of WMD. It does appear rather all-embracing and there is no reference to 'mass destruction'.

To be even handed in my observation here in the UK private, personal possession of nuclear components was only made illegal after 7/7.

:)On a humorous point now. Until recently possession of a siege machine, such as a catapult or battering ram, was a capital offence. Years ago an eccentric built a Medieval trebuchet - a very large catapult - so I asked our legal advisers was it still illegal. It is not! For fun:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thiTa8wfZsc

davidbfpo
04-02-2013, 10:34 PM
A short research report by the London-based ICSR, the author being Aaron Y. Zelin, from the DC-based WINEP:http://icsr.info/2013/04/icsr-insight-european-foreign-fighters-in-syria-2/


It shows that the extent to which the Syrian conflict has mobilised Muslims across the world is significant: between 140 and 600 Europeans have gone to Syria since early 2011, representing 7-11 per cent of the foreign fighter total. (Much later) The extent to which the Syrian conflict has mobilised Muslims across the world is significant and may be compared to the conflicts in Iraq in the 2000s, Bosnia in the 1990s, and Afghanistan in the 1980s.

JWing
04-03-2013, 02:50 PM
These photos from a militant website and reprinted by the Associated Press purport to show Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) fighters in Anbar who are involved in fighting in Syria. It has been widely reported that Islamists like AQI have been flocking to take part in the Syrian conflict. Al Nusra Front for example, is said to be a front group for Al Qaeda. There has recently been blowback in Iraq as well when a group of over 40 Syrian soldiers who had sought refuge in Iraq were ambushed and massacred in Anbar in March 2013. Shiite militias and the Kurdistan Regional Government have either sent forces to Syria or supported fighters there as well. Like the Iraq War involved regional powers and Islamist groups, the same thing is now happening in Syria as these pictures reveal.

http://www.musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2013/04/al-qaeda-in-iraq-fighters-involved-in.html

davidbfpo
04-09-2013, 06:30 PM
Three viewpoints on the announcement by:
AQI Amir al-Baghdadi that Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria is in fact part of AQI's Islamic State of Iraq..

As one analyst concludes:
So, in a nut shell: I believe it is important, even though it might have been little surprising, to know that AQI and Jabhat al-Nusra form a unified body. This is not about AQ supporting Jihadists in Syria, this is AQ expliting another local conflict. In the end, the aim is larger: dominance on the ground where it can be won; attacks on Israel; international attacks.

Link:
http://abususu.blogspot.fr/2013/04/aqi-s-isigs.html

From a WINEP analyst, which ends with a very optimistic stance on US policy:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/al-qaeda-announces-an-islamic-state-in-syria

Jihadica:http://www.jihadica.com/introducing-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-greater-syria%E2%80%9D/

Wyatt
04-11-2013, 01:03 AM
Good frontline episode just came out. Does a decent job of getting a sample of each factions perspective on the war.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/

Moderator's Note: not available in the UK.

davidbfpo
04-25-2013, 09:45 PM
Jeffrey Lewis opens with:
A few thoughts on where we are with the allegations of chemical weapons us in Syria.

I was unaware of this:
Remember, in 1991, US troops detonated a pit of munitions at Khamisiyah in Iraq only to discover that the munitions contained Sarin. The image atop the post is one of a series showing US forces detonating the munitions at Khamisiyah, exposing thousands of US service personnel to low-levels of sarin. This was the worst event, but not the only potential exposure of US forces in 1991 to nerve agents.

Link:http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/6564/syria-and-sarin

ganulv
05-02-2013, 08:24 PM
a couple of days ago. A nice interview which discusses not only shooting and explosions but also the effect of the conflict on society.

Chivers seems to suggest in the interview that the government has had a plan in mind in terms of gradual escalation of use of force and how each step would play in the West. From the transcript of the interview (http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=179855633):


It came, you know, later in the cycle, if you will, of the way the Arab Springs were playing out, and with very cunning savvy leadership in terms of calibrating the tactics of the war to what they thought that the West could tolerate. And by that I mean, you know, the Assad government did not do what the government or the Gadhafi family did in Libya, where it came out of the gates in Libya hard and fast with armored columns, you know, bearing down on Benghazi. You know, immediate use of attack jets, you know, dropping, you know, dumb bombs on the road outside of Benghazi right in front of the foreign reporters. Which kind of galvanized international will and gave it a sense of immediacy.

And, you know, what Gadhafi got for that was, you know, the U.N. Security Council resolution which authorized intervention. He got, you know, U.N. 1973. The Assad government seems to have looked at that and has realized that you don't come out with everything at once. You spin this thing click by click or you move it like a dimmer on your wall. You brighten the lights a little bit at a time.

And so you start with arrests and batons and you move to bullets, and from bullets, you know, you move to the army being involved. And you get the mortars, you get the 107 millimeter rockets. And then you gradually move up to artillery. And then you escalate a little bit by rolling out your air force. But when you roll out your air force, you start with helicopters. You don't go right to jets.

They didn't go to - you know, they didn't start using their attack jets against the towns until last summer. And then you go to, from there, to ballistic missiles. And now perhaps to chemical weapons, which would be the last piece, you know, the last arrow, if you will, left in the quiver. And if you follow this sort of boil the frog slowly policy, you sort of, you know, sensitize your political opponents outside of the country.

The West has watched this step by step and not really taken action beyond rhetorical action. And the Syrian government knows that. And they've sort of escalated the ante so slowly, so methodically, so smartly, that they've almost paralyzed the West. And so the West now finds itself in this position where it's tolerated all of these things. There's never been sort of a trigger moment.

slapout9
05-04-2013, 05:16 AM
Link to CNN report of possible Air Strikes into Syria. Supposedly against chemical weapon sites.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/03/world/meast/israel-airstrike-syria/index.html

Bill Moore
05-04-2013, 09:50 AM
Link to CNN report of possible Air Strikes into Syria. Supposedly against chemical weapon sites.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/03/world/meast/israel-airstrike-syria/index.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22409380

Israeli warplanes 'launch air strike inside Syria'

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201354434558135.html

Israel confirms airstrike on Syria missiles

Israeli officials say air force hit a shipment of 'game changing' weapons in Syria bound for Hezbollah.


The officials said on Saturday the shipment was not of chemical arms, but of "game changing" weapons bound for the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

davidbfpo
05-05-2013, 06:08 PM
An assessment of the Israeli air strike this week on:
Mt. Qasioun, a mountain that overlooks the capital and is at the center of Syria's largest military complex. The very symbol of Assad's control over Damascus was on fire...several important military installations appear to have been the targets of this most recent strike....videos suggest that huge stockpiles of weapons, likely artillery shells and ballistic/artillery rockets, were also destroyed in the airstrike..

Which ends with the 'game changer' passage:
This incident should also permanently put to rest the debate as to whether Assad's air defense is capable of standing up to external threats. Assad is completely vulnerable, and has been dealt a serious blow. As a result, Israel may have completely changed the debate about foreign intervention in a single instant, and may have catalyzed an international drive to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.

So important enough to have a new thread. The main thread 'Syria under Bashir Assad: crumbling now?' remains open:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=146228#post146228


Link:http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2013/5/5/syria-snap-analysis-what-did-israel-bomb-and-why.html

An interesting viewpoint, although I am not convinced Israel would prefer Bashar al-Assad being removed from his position. Nor that international action may follow, at a minimum it may enable a 'no fly zone' - rather late - and direct action if the regime uses chemical weapons.

Now what will others say?

jcustis
05-05-2013, 06:18 PM
I've read mainstream media reporting that Israel did not breach Syrian airspace to conduct the attack, which seems thoroughly possible when you consider that a high density of aircraft were aloft above Lebanon at the time.

Damascus is barely 15 miles from the border, and although I don't have a grasp of the range of a JDAM delivered by a F-15, I imagine the Israelis could dump a few onto Syrian soil fairly easily and not even break a sweat.

Getting in close, and low and slow, may be a totally different issue.

I imagine the US is going to be surprised with whatever happens in Syria, relative to Assad remaining in power. Since we chose to support the efforts of the various anti-Assad actors and are not taking lead, the hands-off-the-wheel approach is going to leave us scrambling to work through several issues that will crop up very soon:

-Breaching sovereignty to secure chemical weapons. Once we do that, what then?

-Limiting Iran's actions in the region. We know it will seek to play a part, so we really need to think through our range of responses.

-Assad is going to fall eventually, and whether it happens today or next year is really of little importance. It is inevitable and we need to think through our next step, and next year's steps, and what we want the Middle East to look like circa 2020. If we don't have the will to start making those choices now, we need to just pack it up and let Israel become the hegemon in the region (and accept all the instability that will come with it).

-Are we willing to play the FID/COIN game again (true COIN this time) alongside the Hashemite Kingdom when it is besieged?

SWJ Blog
05-06-2013, 08:10 AM
Syria: The True Chaos Will Begin After the Fall of the Regime (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/syria-the-true-chaos-will-begin-after-the-fall-of-the-regime)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/syria-the-true-chaos-will-begin-after-the-fall-of-the-regime) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

Wyatt
05-07-2013, 12:12 AM
Its been interesting to watch the american reaction to the report by the UN stating that it may have been the rebels who were responsible for the release of sarin, if it happened at all.

The white house has serious doubts that the rebels could have done this since they are totally just some good down to earth guys :D

Bill Moore
05-07-2013, 07:30 AM
Its been interesting to watch the american reaction to the report by the UN stating that it may have been the rebels who were responsible for the release of sarin, if it happened at all.

The white house has serious doubts that the rebels could have done this since they are totally just some good down to earth guys :D

It did seem odd that someone apparently pressured the UN to withdraw their accusation. The finding may be ultimately prove to be unfounded, but this administration is starting to show a trend of denial. Islamic terrorism is alive and well and the death of UBL simply means justice for those he murdered not the end of the conflict.

It would benefit both sides of this conflict to convince the world that their adversaries used chemical weapons, so I suspect the truth will be hard to pin down.

davidbfpo
05-07-2013, 08:09 PM
A short CSIS commentary on Syrian air defences after the Israeli air strike last week:http://csis.org/publication/syrias-uncertain-air-defense-capabilities

davidbfpo
05-09-2013, 09:35 PM
Reference Post 152 an alternative point of view:http://www.jihadica.com/jabhat-al-nusra-a-self-professed-aq-affiliate/#more-1738

jmm99
05-10-2013, 01:52 PM
Tying into the preceding post, from the Guardian, Free Syrian Army rebels defect to Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/free-syrian-army-rebels-defect-islamist-group) - The well-resourced organisation, which is linked to al-Qaida, is luring many anti-Assad fighters away, say brigade commanders (Mona Mahmood and Ian Black, The Guardian, 8 May 2013):


Syria's main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation with links to al-Qaida that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Evidence of the growing strength of al-Nusra, gathered from Guardian interviews with FSA commanders across Syria, underlines the dilemma for the US, Britain and other governments as they ponder the question of arming anti-Assad rebels.
...
Illustrating their plight, FSA commanders say that entire units have gone over to al-Nusra while others have lost a quarter or more of their strength to them recently.
...
Abu Ahmed and others say the FSA has lost fighters to al-Nusra in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Deir al-Zor and the Damascus region. Ala'a al-Basha, commander of the Sayyida Aisha brigade, warned the FSA chief of staff, General Salim Idriss, about the issue last month. Basha said 3,000 FSA men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition. ...
...
The FSA's Ahrar al-Shimal brigade joined al-Nusra en masse while the Sufiyan al-Thawri brigade in Idlib lost 65 of its fighters to al-Nusra a few months ago for lack of weapons. According to one estimate the FSA has lost a quarter of all its fighters.

Al-Nusra has members serving undercover with FSA units so they can spot potential recruits, according to Abu Hassan of the FSA's al-Tawhid Lions brigade.

The above suggests that JaN would do well in an election among the anti-Assad fighters.

Besides having a presently appealing message and a good "ground game" (using American political jargon), JaN also appears to be well financed:


"If you join al-Nusra, there is always a gun for you but many of the FSA brigades can't even provide bullets for their fighters," complained Abu Tamim, an FSA man who joined Jabhat al-Nusra in Idlib province. "My nephew is in Egypt, he wants to come to Syria to fight but he doesn't have enough money. Al-Nusra told him: 'Come and we will even pay your flight tickets.' He is coming to fight with al-Nusra because he does not have any other way."

Jabhat al-Nusra is winning support in Deir al-Zor, according to Abu Hudaifa, another FSA defector. "They are protecting people and helping them financially. Al-Nusra is in control of most of the oil wells in the city." The Jabhat al-Nusra media, with songs about jihad and martyrdom, is extremely influential.

Abu Zeid used to command the FSA's Syria Mujahideen brigade in the Damascus region and led all its 420 fighters to al-Nusra. "Since we joined I and my men are getting everything we need to keep us fighting to liberate Syria and to cover our families' expenses, though fighting with al-Nusra is governed by very strict rules issued by the operations command or foreign fighters," he said. "There is no freedom at all but you do get everything you want.

Has anyone looked into the source(s) of JaN's funding ?

Regards

Mike

carl
05-16-2013, 11:03 PM
That is what Jamestown is reporting today. Also reporting that is something called ynet out of Israel though they didn't mention Russian crews.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4380773,00.html

Boy are things going to get interesting if they actually do that.

AdamG
05-18-2013, 03:56 PM
It's like Spain 1936 all over again.

Meanwhile, file under "Hell, Handbasket, one each".



Syrian rebels: Dozens hurt in chemical weapons attack in Damascus
Assad forces reportedly drop chemically laced mortars; in separate incident, Free Syrian Army says it killed 4 Iranian, 7 Hezbollah men

http://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-rebels-dozens-hurt-in-chemical-weapons-attack-in-damascus/

Bill Moore
05-20-2013, 03:33 AM
Good frontline episode just came out. Does a decent job of getting a sample of each factions perspective on the war.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syria-behind-the-lines/

Moderator's Note: not available in the UK.

Just got around to watching this, and while much has happened on the ground since then tactically in favor of the government this is still worth watching if you haven't seen it. Reporters focus on one town that is now divided by two factions separated by a river. They conduct interviews with both the Syrian military and Syrian rebels.

The interviews with the Syrian rebels was more enlightening, in my opinion the soldiers interviewed were either plants or well prepared to communicate Assayd's message to the world, but their points are still part of the reality.

The show tended to focus on a young man who was a former police officer and now a rebel fighter. At the end he is wounded, but now claims he wants to join the Al-Qaeda affiliated group.

The rebel group leader (of 10,000 fighters, probably means 2,000), was reportedly a former construction worker. You could tell he was well respected, but he seemed to lead through charisma alone, and demonstrated no military skill.

It was a bit comical in a sad way as they were preparing to attack a Syrian Army outpost and wanted to use a vehicle mounted rocket launcher they acquired. The rebel leader was disappointed when the man who said he could fire it told him that he could fire it, but he didn't know how to aim it. Their attack failed in short order. It was apparent throughout that these rebels were poorly trained, equipped, organized, etc., but they have plenty of heart. I see no sign that their will to fight is abating.

Most telling was watching life in the village. They were constantly under artillery and air attack, and after one horrific air attack that killed several civilians you could sense the level of hate they had for their opposition. One Syrian said they need to slaughter Alawite civilians in revenge.

I just get the sense that there won't be a peaceful end to this, at least anytime soon, since the wills of both side to continue remain strong. I also think all our COIN theory that is largely academic based means little once the conflict crosses a certain threshold and passion surpasses reason. Ultimately tough decisions will have to be made by regional and global actors, but good options appear elusive for now.

carl
05-20-2013, 06:03 PM
Bill Moore:

None of our various methods of small war fighting encompass unlimited, indiscriminate application of violence. They basically have nothing to do with the way the Syrian gov has gone about its business now or in the past. There is a reason "our COIN theory" doesn't cover this kind of thing.

tequila
05-20-2013, 08:18 PM
Very interesting story on how Jabhat al-Nusra has gained control of the oil wells in the north, thus gaining an additional stream of revenue that will allow it to become self-sustaining:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/19/jihadists-control-syrian-oilfields

There is a completely unverified nugget here:



The impact is immediately visible. With a new independent source of funding, the jihadists holding the oilfields between al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor are much better equipped than their Sunni rivals, reinforcing the advantage originally provided by Qatari backing. They have been able to provide bread and other essentials to the people in the areas under their control, securing an enduring popular base.

This serves to marginalise the western-backed rebels, the National Coalition and the Supreme Military Council (SMC), even further. The blustering claim by the SMC commander, Salim Idriss, that he was going to muster a 30,000 force to retake the oilfields served only to undermine his credibility.

More importantly, as so often in history, control over hydrocarbons has solidified new lines on the map. The fact that the Syrian army has withdrawn from the heart of the country and that the victorious Salafist groups have not pressed their attack, but instead entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Damascus over the oil, show that both sides are satisfied with the dividing lines.


Also an article about possible splintering within Jabhat al-Nusra over its declared allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/al-nusra-syria-jihadists-divisions.html




But Jabhat al-Nusra's yesterday seems to be much better than today. A serious split is threatening the group's unity at a very crucial and sensitive time, given the preparations and negotiations for a US-Russia sponsored conference on Syria — in which Jabhat al-Nusra will have no part and will want to spoil.

Why are brothers in arms, ideology and blood fighting? Weeks ago, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic state of Iraq (al-Qaeda in Iraq), called on Abu Mohammad al-Golani, Jabhat al-Nusra's leader, to merge under one name, the answer came back negative.

Golani instead linked his group directly (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=758_1365607619) to al-Qaeda's general leader Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri. He clearly wanted to say (http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-militants-pledge-allegiance-al-qaida-135156948.html) that Jabhat al-Nusra is just another direct branch from al-Qaeda, not a franchise.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/al-nusra-syria-jihadists-divisions.html#ixzz2TreB9Abu

Bill Moore
05-20-2013, 09:32 PM
Bill Moore:

None of our various methods of small war fighting encompass unlimited, indiscriminate application of violence. They basically have nothing to do with the way the Syrian gov has gone about its business now or in the past. There is a reason "our COIN theory" doesn't cover this kind of thing.

You are misreading my point. No one is advocating mimicking Syrian strategy, but pointing out our doctrinal focus on winning over the population in a civil war as a way to reduce violence, especially through a nation building approach does not address the underlying hatred driving the conflict. If governments can address underlying issues before passio n and hatred override reason that approach may work . Once the red line is crossed it won't.

carl
05-21-2013, 01:18 AM
Bill Moore:

I can't think of a conflict that gets to a point where people kill each other that doesn't involve strong hatred, so I don't see where that has anything much to do with it.

As far as the dreaded nation building goes, that is only part of a good small war fight. The way we do things of course often has next to nothing to do with good practices. Ultimately you have to win over the population, or at least get them stand aside from the fight to the extent they don't support passively or actively the opposition. If you don't do that the only alternative is to get beat or do it the Syrian gov way.

carl
05-21-2013, 01:58 AM
Very interesting story on how Jabhat al-Nusra has gained control of the oil wells in the north, thus gaining an additional stream of revenue that will allow it to become self-sustaining:

There is a completely unverified nugget here:

Also an article about possible splintering within Jabhat al-Nusra over its declared allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq:

Tequila, glad to see you back.

Madhu
05-21-2013, 03:32 AM
Carl:


You are misreading my point. No one is advocating mimicking Syrian strategy, but pointing out our doctrinal focus on winning over the population in a civil war as a way to reduce violence, especially through a nation building approach does not address the underlying hatred driving the conflict. If governments can address underlying issues before passio n and hatred override reason that approach may work . Once the red line is crossed it won't.


No, I believe Bill's point is that a complex sectarian and civil war with multiple ethnic militias and splintered anti-government factions is different than a classical Maoist insurgency/an insurgency in the mold of classical wars of liberation (post colonial).

To switch examples, would you have fought the American Civil War as a classical Maoist insurgency?

Population centric counterinsurgency with its emphasis on providing government services by a third party on behalf of a quasi Sovereign entity in order to win over locals, as in the case of Afghanistan--sometimes we respect sovereignty, sometimes we don't--is something almost sui generis and it hasn't worked very well because it doesn't do the trick for a variety of reasons. Safe havens because of our heavy logistical needs, the Af Pak strategy paying or training two armies, the Taliban taxing our nation building work, our money serving as a corrupting source that prevents good goverment.

Why do you think this can be fixed? Developmental aid as nation building has been tried in many places around the world and it has often been a big fat failure. And that is in peace time.

What evidence supports the thesis that money for development projects changes the essential governing situation?

I keep quoting the following book but there are so many passages pertinent to the conversation on multiple threads:



That spring, traveling around Iraq, reading the various commander's memos and intelligence reports, Casey had an epiphany: the was had degenerated into a battle for political and economic power among many ethnic and sectarian factions; in other words, the enemy was no longer an "insurgency". That being the case, he inferred that it no longer made sense to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy. Kaplan, The Insurgents

Nation building as understood from population counterinsurgency is built on much bad science, poor quality studies, and outright mythology when examined clinically, IMO.

What is the evidence to support that it worked? The actual, hard evidence by past example?

For instance, Algeria: violence and coercion were used against the population but somehow pulling out the examples of providing services is supposed to work in a different country in a different century against different people. And Algeria didn't even work.

If factors X, Y and Z add up to a particular small wars pacification, then how can one justify taking only Y out and saying it will work every time?What if you needed all three to break the insurgency?
Each event is contingent.

On some of the famous papers from Military Review circa 2005, well, I understand the pressure the military was under and why practical papers were rushed out and it is noble when viewed in that context, noble and wonderful and admirable, and, unfortunately, flawed upon reflection. They are basically just a bunch of random opinion when examined critically. I am sorry to say that, but that is what I get from reading a few.

When examined at a distance and clinically, they are bunch of war stories about what some guys thought. Fine, that is one important data point but it has to be backed up with other data or you are basically just repeating a bunch of myths. Maybe they are correct, maybe they are not, but the evidence is not, "hey, this is what I think and my opinion is the same as a fact or evidence."

Madhu
05-21-2013, 03:52 AM
Bill Moore:

I can't think of a conflict that gets to a point where people kill each other that doesn't involve strong hatred, so I don't see where that has anything much to do with it.

As far as the dreaded nation building goes, that is only part of a good small war fight. The way we do things of course often has next to nothing to do with good practices. Ultimately you have to win over the population, or at least get them stand aside from the fight to the extent they don't support passively or actively the opposition. If you don't do that the only alternative is to get beat or do it the Syrian gov way.


Where do you get this information that a good small wars fight involves certain good practices? What are you basing your information on? Galula's book is hugely flawed, carl, there are huge problems with it and the situation he described didn't exist in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

It doesn't mean that tactically we can't learn things from it but it has to be put in context and matched up with other things.

Seriously, hard evidence? Sorry to be such a jerk but I can't understand this largely male fantasy. It's like male chick lit.

Madhu
05-21-2013, 03:58 AM
The Centurions review:


M. Larteguy's argument, revolutionary though it is meant to sound, is a familiar one. If anything, that is its strength: The Centurions is a call for a radical defense of the old values. The Communists have remembered what we have forgotten; if we rededicate ourselves to the ideals of strength, independence, self-reliance, we can destroy them and thereby save ourselves. Indeed, we will have saved ourselves by the rededication itself.

Larteguy is probably right on military grounds. The day of Napoleonic Grande Armee has passed; the French experiences discussed in The Centurions prove it, and the United States is learning the same thing today in Viet-Nam.

But his contention that a revolutionized Army is the key to a new Revolutionary France is wide of the mark. Sartre's contrary theory of involution--that the desperation and violence of the Army is corrupting whatever survives of a healthy France--is, I think, more accurate. Perhaps Larteguy is just when he blames domestic decadence for the impotence of the Army in the colonies; but he does not convince me that it can and must therefore save France.

In fairness, I should say that I doubt anybody could sell me on such a theory. But if anyone could, it certainly wouldn't be Larteguy. The problem, as I suggested above, is that The Centurions is a very bad novel. Larteguy has allowed his venomous feelings towards France and his intoxication with the military to overwhelm his book.


http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1962/2/24/what-the-french-army-needs-a/

No, this is not a thread jack, promise :)

Aw, maybe it is. I seem to have this stuff on the brain. That review is weird, though. Seriously, male military fantasy. Don't get mad, okay? You all know I'm on your side.

PS: To pull this all together, it seems to me that a bunch of people romanticized guerrilla warfare and colonialism and certain novels and memoirs and somehow, doctrine incredibly followed this romantic, unsupported view of how to fight based on a bunch of idealized notions that weren't really what happened. That Americans with their own history could do that! I guess if the people are brown, the Constitution and our foundational values go out the window.

Now you can all yell at me and tell me what I've got wrong!

Bill Moore
05-21-2013, 04:08 AM
Madhu, you captured my point accurately. Carl I think you're perpetuating our COIN doctrine myth, and blaming the failure of it to work so far because we simply don't do it well. I admit the doctrine seems logical, but having participating in more than two of these conflicts as an advsior in multiple countries in Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East I know the logic of doctrinal assumptions tend to fall apart when it hits the reality of a complex convergence of psychological, social, and political influences. There are a few insurgencies around the world where the doctrine would work, but in most cases the conflict is much more complex than simply insurgents battling a so called illegimate government or in our case (when we do COIN) an occupying power.

Back to Syria, there have been some articles suggesting we should intervene in Syria and the authors imply we can use all the lessons learnt from our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to stabilize Syria. This implies our COIN doctrine actually worked in those cases, and therefore it would work in Syria. It implies that the population in Syria can be won? What segment is that? The Alawites? The Kurds? The AQ affiliates? I'm sure if we rebuild their schools and create petty jobs with our CERP money that they all forgive each other, Al-Qaeda will retreat, Iran and Hizbollah will withdraw, and we will have denied a future safe haven for terrorists at moderate cost. However, just in case this doesn't work out, what can we do?

At best we can achieve limited military objectives of seizing and securing certain facilities to limit the distribution of weapons to the growing extremist network. We can assist the resistance movements by attacking the Syrian regime, but to what end? I hope we think this one through very carefully. We can shape this conflict, but we can't control it. We can achieve limited objectives if deemed necessary, we can't impose a legitimate government that all the people will embrace.

carl
05-21-2013, 05:17 AM
Carl:No, I believe Bill's point is that a complex sectarian and civil war with multiple ethnic militias and splintered anti-government factions is different than a classical Maoist insurgency/an insurgency in the mold of classical wars of liberation (post colonial).

To switch examples, would you have fought the American Civil War as a classical Maoist insurgency?

Every war is different from every other in some ways and the same as every other in other ways. Your description above isn't that different from China in the 20s and 30s. It wasn't always the the KMT vs. the ChiComs. In the beginning there was seemingly all against all plus the Japanese and it took decades to sort itself out. The same could be said sort of for Mexico from 1910 to the mid 20s. Societies that have come apart will take some time to put themselves back together. Different kinds of things will be needed in different places at different times.

The trick is to know what to do when. Bill said originally "our COIN theory" doesn't cover this. It also doesn't cover amphibious operations or operations to counter operational maneuver groups. If somebody tries to apply small war fighting to those kinds of fights, it is their fault, not the fault of the small war fighting practices that seem to work over the years. Somebody will eventually prevail in Syria and they will probably have to fight everything from small tank battles to pacification. And they will have to use the gamut of things from tank heavy formations swinging around a flank to get an HQ to small groups of soldiers garrisoning towns and villages. We did the same thing by the way in the American Civil War. In addition to the big fight there were lots and lots of small war operations that were conducted throughout the war and for years afterward.


Population centric counterinsurgency with its emphasis on providing government services by a third party on behalf of a quasi Sovereign entity in order to win over locals, as in the case of Afghanistan--sometimes we respect sovereignty, sometimes we don't--is something almost sui generis and it hasn't worked very well because it doesn't do the trick for a variety of reasons. Safe havens because of our heavy logistical needs, the Af Pak strategy paying or training two armies, the Taliban taxing our nation building work, our money serving as a corrupting source that prevents good goverment.

Why do you think this can be fixed? Developmental aid as nation building has been tried in many places around the world and it has often been a big fat failure. And that is in peace time.

What you are describing is the screwed up American way of doing things in the age of pro-force, power point, 1 year armies replaced by another 1 year army every year, completely impossible chains of command whose primary purpose is to soothe professional egos rather than win, state dept people who won't go into harms way, national leadership elites short on determination and on and on and on. Arguing that as an indictment is like arguing the failure of Arab air forces to get much of anything done in their history means airpower isn't very useful.


What evidence supports the thesis that money for development projects changes the essential governing situation?

None. It can't work if nothing else accompanies it. But it appeals to the American elite governing class because they have easily quantifiable metrics to point at when they prepare their resumes for their next step up. We don't do small war fighting so much as we more often do 'Career Centric Coin'. (There is a brilliant article about career centric coin somewhere back in SWJ about two years ago.)


Nation building as understood from population counterinsurgency is built on much bad science, poor quality studies, and outright mythology when examined clinically, IMO.

War fighting isn't a science, it is an art. People are too variable for it to be a science. But there are certain things that generally work, generally. Say this for example '"Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, and as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain't lookin'." I think people who are good at it have a feel for it that can't be taught. An inborn talent, like great artistic ability.


What is the evidence to support that it worked? The actual, hard evidence by past example?

What worked? Career centric coin? Never. Successful small wars using say lots of patrols, quadrillage, local self defense groups, units staying in place (especially officers) a long time, minimizing sanctuaries, controlling the population etc? The Philippines, twice. Iraq, once. Check out the history of the Indian Army, multiple times. The Marines in Haiti. The fight against Sendoro Luminoso. The French conquest of North Africa and others.


If factors X, Y and Z add up to a particular small wars pacification, then how can one justify taking only Y out and saying it will work every time?What if you needed all three to break the insurgency?
Each event is contingent.

Yes each event is different. And you do need to do all the things. Dependence upon one at the exclusion of the others is foolish. Who are you arguing with?


On some of the famous papers from Military Review circa 2005, well, I understand the pressure the military was under and why practical papers were rushed out and it is noble when viewed in that context, noble and wonderful and admirable, and, unfortunately, flawed upon reflection. They are basically just a bunch of random opinion when examined critically. I am sorry to say that, but that is what I get from reading a few.

When examined at a distance and clinically, they are bunch of war stories about what some guys thought. Fine, that is one important data point but it has to be backed up with other data or you are basically just repeating a bunch of myths. Maybe they are correct, maybe they are not, but the evidence is not, "hey, this is what I think and my opinion is the same as a fact or evidence."

That is one thing about war, this forever a civilian thinks, when a guy who is good at it says this is what I think and here is my opinion; it is evidence and it should be considered. Warring does not exactly lend itself to the scientific method.

carl
05-21-2013, 05:34 AM
Where do you get this information that a good small wars fight involves certain good practices? What are you basing your information on? Galula's book is hugely flawed, carl, there are huge problems with it and the situation he described didn't exist in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

It doesn't mean that tactically we can't learn things from it but it has to be put in context and matched up with other things.

Seriously, hard evidence? Sorry to be such a jerk but I can't understand this largely male fantasy. It's like male chick lit.

Which Galula book are you talking about? I only skimmed Counterinsurgency because I read Pacification in Algeria and it covered everything in greater and more readable detail. You should read that. It's great...and free at RAND. I don't think Galula's ideas are flawed hardly at all. Our interpretation by career oriented interpreters is very flawed however. But if you don't like him how about Lyautey? Most of the things Galula advocated had been done by Hubert. Or the US Army experience in the Philippines and Moroland? Or The Village? Or the Snake Eaters? Or the fight against the Huks? Or on and on.

Obviously the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan differs from Algeria or Peru. If somebody believes that what worked in one place can be precisely applied in the same manner someplace else there is something wrong with them, not with the overall idea. Just like you say it has to be adapted to the situation.

There isn't any hard evidence. It isn't science. It is things that generally work. You want hard evidence, stick with ballistics, except for terminal ballistics, which involves humans again so things get complicated.

You ain't a jerk.

carl
05-21-2013, 05:47 AM
The Centurions review:



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1962/2/24/what-the-french-army-needs-a/

No, this is not a thread jack, promise :)

Aw, maybe it is. I seem to have this stuff on the brain. That review is weird, though. Seriously, male military fantasy. Don't get mad, okay? You all know I'm on your side.

PS: To pull this all together, it seems to me that a bunch of people romanticized guerrilla warfare and colonialism and certain novels and memoirs and somehow, doctrine incredibly followed this romantic, unsupported view of how to fight based on a bunch of idealized notions that weren't really what happened. That Americans with their own history could do that! I guess if the people are brown, the Constitution and our foundational values go out the window.

Now you can all yell at me and tell me what I've got wrong!

It's a novel and if I recall right, it reflects the ideas of a certain group of French officers who were really impressed by their captivity at the hands of the Commies. They actually believed that if they go the propaganda right everything would fall into place. It didn't but they had some influence for a while. The Constitution goes out the window in many wars including ours. It has to. Check out the fate of Vallandigham.

carl
05-21-2013, 06:06 AM
Madhu, you captured my point accurately. Carl I think you're perpetuating our COIN doctrine myth, and blaming the failure of it to work so far because we simply don't do it well. I admit the doctrine seems logical, but having participating in more than two of these conflicts as an advsior in multiple countries in Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East I know the logic of doctrinal assumptions tend to fall apart when it hits the reality of a complex convergence of psychological, social, and political influences. There are a few insurgencies around the world where the doctrine would work, but in most cases the conflict is much more complex than simply insurgents battling a so called illegimate government or in our case (when we do COIN) an occupying power.

Well we'll have to disagree. We don't do it well, witness the command structure in Afghanistan. I actually don't know, but have we ever got around to doing a comprehensive census over there? I know we have done nothing about the external support and sanctuary provided by Pakistan.

But come to think of it, what type of small wars fighting are you talking about, the type we did in the Philippines or the 'throw money and aerial bombs at them till they like us' type of career centric small war we do in Afghanistan?


Back to Syria, there have been some articles suggesting we should intervene in Syria and the authors imply we can use all the lessons learnt from our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to stabilize Syria. This implies our COIN doctrine actually worked in those cases, and therefore it would work in Syria. It implies that the population in Syria can be won? What segment is that? The Alawites? The Kurds? The AQ affiliates? I'm sure if we rebuild their schools and create petty jobs with our CERP money that they all forgive each other, Al-Qaeda will retreat, Iran and Hizbollah will withdraw, and we will have denied a future safe haven for terrorists at moderate cost. However, just in case this doesn't work out, what can we do?

I think your problem is more with stupid authors and the 'throw money and aerial bombs at them till they like us' school of thought than anything else.


At best we can achieve limited military objectives of seizing and securing certain facilities to limit the distribution of weapons to the growing extremist network. We can assist the resistance movements by attacking the Syrian regime, but to what end? I hope we think this one through very carefully. We can shape this conflict, but we can't control it. We can achieve limited objectives if deemed necessary, we can't impose a legitimate government that all the people will embrace.

I don't think there is anything we can do. We can't shape it at all. I can't for the life of me figure out how. I seriously doubt we have any good idea at all where the various weapons we fear are and if we did we won't risk the very real possibility of serious casualties to secure them. Everybody in that country is 10 times better at intrigue than almost any of us will ever be.

I have always thought this about this conflict, but I think I was wrong to think that 1 or 2 years ago. Not now though. If we had had the nerve to pick a side and fully back it or kill Bashir ourselves back then, maybe. At least we would have had a chance of keeping the Jihadists from hijacking the rebellion. Not now though. Even if our political leaders had the nerve, I haven't a clue what we should do except hope for the best.

The big problem is things might get to the point where we will be forced to do something if the scenario Tequila's articles mentions comes about.

Bill Moore
05-21-2013, 07:13 AM
Carl,

Actually I don't disagree with your assertion that we don't do COIN, or more accurately small wars, well at the tactical level. My point is even if we did do it well in accordance with our COIN doctrine it wouldn't make a difference in the outcome if the strategy is flawed.

I agree with your statements about the tactical essentials of denying safe haven, frequent patrolling, protecting the population, etc. Failure to be more aggressive in the initial years and excessive use of fire power was due to a risk adverse mentality that infected the force. None the less, the major cause of failure were our nave policy goals. Even with tactical excellence we wouldn't have achieved those ends, but we would have taken few casualties by being more aggressive towards the fighters and less aggressive towards the population (excessive aerial bombings, etc.).

People will always question whether Syria would have turned out differently if we intervened in the early years. No one will know, but I suspect that is wishful thinking on our part. The same groups fighting now were always there. Al-Qaeda had a presence in Syria ever since they established a presence in Iraq to counter our occupation. The Iranians and Russians were supporting Bashir before we would have intervened and they would most likely increased their support if we supported the adversaries.

Madhu
05-21-2013, 12:44 PM
The voices in my head, apparently.

There is more than one conversation going on:

1. If we had intervened in Syria earlier could we have prevented a jihadist infiltration? I doubt it but here we can agree to disagree.

2. The process of writing FM 3-24 and the political battles behind the scenes in the military is very interesting to me and has been documented now in books, some papers, certainly here at SWJ. The reflection and documentation will be argued forever, I suppose, given the nature of the subject.

Yes, small was have certain practices that are generally accepted but if you look at the behind the scenes arguments different scholars and practitioners of small wars wanted to focus on different aspects and objected to the focus of Army counterinsurgency doctrine as it was being written (for instance Bing West).

Reportedly, during the conference for that doctrinal manual he mentioned that what he was talking about in the Village was intrinsically different than population centric counterinsurgency, that his patrolling was at night killing insurgents. It wasn't focusing on building wells and schools as a first step to draw out insurgents. Those books that you talk about that detail small wars good practices? The practices were different, in, well, practice.

That's the argument, that Army doctrine has made it a one size fits all situation. The counterargument is that people don't really follow doctrine but if that is the case, then the whole thing is messed up either way.

It is the focus and emphasis of one tactical example over the other that is the argument, they are not all equally emphasized in the different COIN strategies. This is what I believe Colonel Gentile means when he says the enemy is absent in the current doctrine. You are saying the same thing too, actually.

3. By evidence I mean historical evidence, intelligence, sociological evidence, psychological evidence, terrain as evidence, etc.

For instance, on the art, there is good art and bad art. Good art realizes that a heavy logistical train through insurgent territory might be a bad idea; bad art thinks it can rescue this problem with better well and school building and patrolling. Good art vs. bad art.

I need to do a better job referring to the different things I've read to make my points. Upon reflection, I can see how confusing my comments are because I'm thinking of specific papers and books and how can you know if I don't tell you? I will try and do better.

The better part of valor is for me to track down those papers and perhaps discuss them on a thread here but I am shy to do this because I understand the tremendous pressure under which the papers are written. I also have no military experience. I do believe that they need to be discussed and "close read" carefully. The military folks can correct me if I'm wrong on certain things.

I mentioned the novel because it was a formative experience for Petraeus and lead to an interest in small wars and an interest in Galula, apparently. I think there is a paper in Salon about this and the reissue of the novel.

Douglas Porch is the scholar that has written on the French in Algeria and in his opinion Galula's impressions didn't match up with what actually happened when examining other sources.

Remember, there are lots and lots of sources and some evidence was probably never collected right? This is the situation in India where my poorer illiterate ancestors never left any record of their experience under the Raj.

By the way, the colonial government in India did do some good things (well, they were the government, they were supposed to do that) but the fantasy versions that are very popular in books and the historical reality based on historical evidence are different. I know that reality changes with interpretation but that evidence paints a very different picture than romanticized novels.

For instance, people call the Indian Mutiny the First Indian War of Independence. They never thought they were pacified, carl. Some never thought they were pacified. How's that for a trip?

Studying the diaries of, say, a British officer is great but to have a full picture you need to examine the stories of more than one person and try and match up the stories to evidence from the ground.

No, it's not science as hard science is understood but Military Science exists or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

This is what I meant by evidence. Artists, really good artists, research plenty.

Aargh, you people always draw me in when I tell myself, "that's it, I'm not commenting here anymore!"

I guess it's a compliment to all of you!

Madhu
05-21-2013, 12:59 PM
I've worked or trained in a lot of different hospital environments but until now primarily with an academic and clinical tertiary care institutional focus. Now I see the effects of Iraq and Afghanistan with regularity. It may be that I am too emotional on the subject.

On Syria, I rambled on here:

http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2013/04/kow-readers-should-americas-strategic-calculus-on-intervention-in-syria-change/comment-page-1/#comment-22456

The entire situation is messed up and has been from the beginning, the Syrian diaspora I know don't want outside involvement (many terrified of the opposition with or without jihadist infiltration) and some of the people writing pro intervention papers are journalists that wrote for Iraq intervention and were part of a particular type of British or American think tank world. The connections are curious and the track record of their prediction pretty dismal.

carl
05-21-2013, 02:37 PM
Carl,

Actually I don't disagree with your assertion that we don't do COIN, or more accurately small wars, well at the tactical level. My point is even if we did do it well in accordance with our COIN doctrine it wouldn't make a difference in the outcome if the strategy is flawed.

My turn to agree with you. The strategy was completely fouled up in Afghanistan at least. Part of strategy is figuring out who the prime enemy is, in my view the Pak Army/ISI. If you can't figure that out nothing at all is going to help. After you figure that part right, the next part of strategy is figuring what your biggest weakness is vis a vis the prime enemy and then do something about it. That would be the Karachi supply line and we could have just abandoned it and lightened up, which would have helped in a hundred different ways. But we didn't recognize those big picture realities and it was a forlorn hope.

One of the big strategic realities we face is our senior leadership, political AND military, to put it bluntly, have no backbone at all. It seems that bluff is their primary weapon and if that doesn't work there is nothing else. The problem with that is once the enemy figures that out, it puts you in a position that there is no way out of.

That is part of our problem in Syria (just part), at least as far as the Russkis and the Iranians go. Russia has nothing except nerve, which they got a lot of. If we were to really put the screws on them they would have to back off but they know we won't do anything but bleat so on they go. You don't impress Russians with earnest talk. They're Russians. For God's sake you don't let them snub your Sec of State by making him wait in the ante room for 3 hours. They'll walk all over you if you do that.

The same with the Iranians. Those guys are tough guys. Words mean nothing to them. If one of their cargo flights went mysteriously missing over the Iraqi desert, that would mean something.

The problem our leadership classes present us is insurmountable. The opportunities they give our enemies are vast.

carl
05-21-2013, 03:05 PM
Madhu:

I don't know where the 'give them money and they will love us enough risk getting their throats cut' idea came from. I always been amazed too when I've read about some armoured truck column going to a village once a week and asking what they need and where is the enemy and how is security and then they wonder why they aren't making any progress with that village. That has never worked. Heck I don't think anybody ever was stupid enough to think it would before the inside the beltway types twisted small war fighting into something Oprah would approve of. It always was about controlling the place first. I think West, Lt. Johnston, Galula and Lyautey would all agree with that. Most of our guys know that and can do it if we let them.

I just finished Galula by Cohen and it was a very good book. He said that Galula didn't really know much about Lyautey and all those guys because of when they came into the army, just at the start of WWII. There wasn't time to teach them. Mr. Galula came up with his ideas mostly from watching the war in China. Cohen said that was a shame because many of his ideas were similar to those of the French who pacified North Africa way back when. Ours isn't the only army that forgets its past I guess.

By Indian Army, I meant the army of the country of India, not the army of the Raj. The Indian Army of today has a huge amount of small war fighting experience.

Bill Moore
05-21-2013, 06:46 PM
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/20/top_ten_warning_signs_of_liberal_imperialism

Top 10 warning signs of 'liberal imperialism'


The odd-bedfellow combination of their idealism with neocons' ideology has given us a lot of bad foreign policy over the past decade, especially the decisions to intervene militarily in Iraq or nation-build in Afghanistan, and today's drumbeat to do the same in Syria.

It's not that the United States should never intervene in other countries or that its military should not undertake humanitarian missions (as it did in Indonesia following the Asian tsunami and in Haiti after a damaging earthquake). It should do so, however, only when there are vital national interests at stake or when sending U.S. troops or American arms is overwhelmingly likely to make things better. In short, decisions to intervene need to clear a very high bar and survive hardheaded questioning about what the use of force will actually accomplish.

Lots of folks who visit SWJ need to start the 12 step program.

ganulv
05-22-2013, 01:47 AM
I don’t know how much, if any, of this is true, but the post is still pretty funny.

Satellite Navigation Error Sends Hezbollah’s Men Fighting In The Wrong Place in Syria

In an embarrassing admission for the Lebanese party, it emerged today that a satellite navigation error was responsible for Hezbollah’s men fighting in the wrong part of Syria. The Party of God’s fighters were on their way to participate in The Campaign To Defend The Shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab located just outside Damascus, but ended up by mistake in the town of al-Qusayr near the northern border between Syria and Lebanon, some 100 miles away from their intended destination. […] http://www.karlremarks.com/2013/05/satellite-navigation-error-sends.html

Bill Moore
05-26-2013, 04:12 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/world/middleeast/syrian-army-and-hezbollah-step-up-raids-on-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Hezbollah Commits to an All-Out Fight to Save Assad


Mr. Nasrallah, a shrewd political operator, appears to be calculating that the West, thrown off balance by the rise of jihadist factions among the Syrian rebels, will not jump in on the rebel side.


He evoked Hezbollah’s tenacity during its 2006 war with Israel, signaling that the organization considered the fight in Syria to preserve Mr. Assad and the crucial conduit he provides for weapons from Iran, as important as its founding mission, opposing Israel and driving it out of Lebanon.

If you read the rest of the article you'll see Nasrallah is also concerned about the conflict in Syria creating renewed sectarian conflict in Lebanon, which I suspect is another key driver in his decision to take such a strong position on the conflict in Syria.

1. His external support will be weakened (Iran, Syria)
2. His safe haven and his status will be threatened by new civil strife w/in Lebanon.

Suspect both of these could seriously degrade the image and status Hezbollah gained after their fight with Israel in 2006.

Bill Moore
05-26-2013, 04:53 PM
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201352645843641150.html

Rockets hit Beirut's southern suburbs

At least five people injured as car dealership and residential building are hit in Lebanon's capital.


In a televised address, Nasrallah pledged that Hezbollah would turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favour, and stay as long as necessary to do so.

"We will continue this road until the end, we will take the responsibility and we will make all the sacrifices," he said. "We will be victorious."

The fighting in Syria has already spilled over into Lebanon's second city, the northern port of Tripoli, where 31 people have been killed and 212 wounded in a week of clashes between pro-Assad Alawites and pro-rebel Sunni Muslims.

From:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/hezbollah-chief-admits-and-defends-groups-involvement-in-syrian-war/2013/05/25/3748965a-c55e-11e2-9fe2-6ee52d0eb7c1_story.html


He also said that if Hezbollah did not act preemptively, Lebanon would be put at further risk.

“If Syria falls into the hands of America, Israel and the takfiris, the people of our region will enter a dark period,” he said, casting the opposition as followers of an extreme interpretation of Islam that condones aggression. “If we do not go there to fight them . . . they will come here.”

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, leader of the Sunni Future Movement, on Saturday described Hezbollah’s decision to fight in Syria as “political and military suicide.”

Red Rat
05-26-2013, 10:14 PM
This is probably the best analysis of the Syrian situation that I have read this year: Is this the end of Sykes-Picot? (http://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/05/23/patrick-cockburn/is-it-the-end-of-sykes-picot)

It ties in a number of threads that I have picked up from other informed commentators.

I do wonder why we insist on trying to maintain the Sykes-Picot boundaries. Historically boundaries have shown a lot of flexibility.

Bill Moore
05-27-2013, 04:23 AM
This is probably the best analysis of the Syrian situation that I have read this year: Is this the end of Sykes-Picot? (http://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/05/23/patrick-cockburn/is-it-the-end-of-sykes-picot)

It ties in a number of threads that I have picked up from other informed commentators.

I do wonder why we insist on trying to maintain the Sykes-Picot boundaries. Historically boundaries have shown a lot of flexibility.

Thanks for posting, this is an excellent article. This could be the beginning of the end for Sykes-Picot boundaries, but I suspect there are a lot of powers that find these borders useful and will fight to maintain them. Cockburn captures it well with the following, which is why predictions in this situation are at best a wild guess.


It’s hard to imagine a real agreement being reached when there are so many players with conflicting interests. Five distinct conflicts have become tangled together in Syria: a popular uprising against a dictatorship which is also a sectarian battle between Sunnis and the Alawite sect; a regional struggle between Shia and Sunni which is also a decades-old conflict between an Iranian-led grouping and Iran’s traditional enemies, notably the US and Saudi Arabia. Finally, at another level, there is a reborn Cold War confrontation: Russia and China v. the West. The conflict is full of unexpected and absurd contradictions, such as a purportedly democratic and secular Syrian opposition being funded by the absolute monarchies of the Gulf who are also fundamentalist Sunnis.

davidbfpo
05-27-2013, 07:18 PM
A report in Le Monde, by two French journalists embedded with opposition fighters, which reports repeated use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime:http://mobile.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/05/27/chemical-war-in-syria_3417708_3218.html

Bill Moore
05-29-2013, 07:37 AM
The proxy war in Syria is expanding rapidly and it may have passed the point that the Syrian government or Free Syrian Army will determine the outcome of the conflict in Syria, but both sides will merely become pawns for other actors that include, but is not limited to: Iran, Russia, Lebanese Hezbollah, the EU, U.S., a number of Arab States and Al-Qaeda.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22688894

Russian arms 'to deter foreign intervention in Syria'


Russia says it will go ahead with deliveries of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, and that the arms will help deter foreign intervention.


On Monday, the EU said member states would be able to decide their own policy on sending arms to Syria, after foreign ministers were unable to reach the unanimous decision required to extend the current arms embargo past Saturday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanese-soldiers-killed-on-syrian-border-sectarian-conflict-intensifies/2013/05/28/bb57fe86-c7a2-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html

Syrian rebels threaten Hezbollah as sectarian conflict intensifies


The shooting of three Lebanese soldiers Tuesday at a checkpoint near the Syrian border — decried by Lebanese President Michel Suleiman as an attempt to “stir up strife” — underscored the worsening instability in the fragile nation.

Politically polarized, Lebanon has attempted to pursue a policy of “disassociation” with the two-year-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. But that facade is now in tatters: Ministers with alliances to Damascus have traveled to meet Assad, while others have publicly supported the opposition.

When Hezbollah, which wields significant control over the country’s weak caretaker government, openly admitted sending fighters to Syria on Saturday and pledged to back Assad to the hilt, it marked the end of any pretense of neutrality.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqi-shiites-fight-for-syrian-government/2013/05/26/6c3c39b4-c245-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html

Iraqi Shiites fight for Syrian government


The Iraqi fighters in the video shoulder assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as they walk down a highway lined with cypress trees. Grinning, some hold up cellphones and camcorders to capture the moment — the aftermath of a victorious battle to secure the Aleppo airport from Syrian rebels who had attempted to take it.


The role of Iraqi Shiite fighters in Syria raises questions about the possible complicity of the Iraqi government, which U.S. officials have recently criticized for allowing Iran to use Iraqi airspace for flights that allegedly transport weapons, troops and supplies to the Assad government.


But Iraqi officials have warned repeatedly that Assad’s fall would spell disaster for Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the Associated Press in February that a rebel victory in Syria would revive Iraq’s sectarian war.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/302049-mccain-visits-syria-to-meet-with-rebels

McCain meets with rebel leaders in Syria


According to the Daily Beast, which first reported the visit, McCain met with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and spent a few hours in the country after entering through Turkey.


Last week, however, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill to arm the Syrian opposition, a bipartisan rebuke to the White House

Other reports of unknown credibility claimed Sen McCain promised to push for U.S. support for the rebels.

This is already a quasi-World War, but with the potential to rapidly escalate into a regional World War involving a number of states and non-state actors. I don't know what good will become of U.S. intervention, but it appears we're on that road despite our regional ally(?) Iraq telling us a rebel victory would result in a new civil war in Iraq (as though that isn't materializing already).

Bill Moore
05-29-2013, 08:24 AM
Worth considering

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/opinion/skinner-syria

Before taking on Syria, U.S. should heed lesson of the past


But in Weinberger's view, Lebanon was the wrong fight for the United States. In a speech on November 28, 1984, he articulated his six principles for future U.S. military engagements:

(1) There should be no commitment of U.S. forces abroad unless there is a clear and vital interest for the United States or its allies; (2) Combat, if agreed upon, should be undertaken with the intention of military victory, using whatever forces and resources are needed to achieve that goal; (3) Political and military objectives must be clearly defined before entering a conflict; (4) The relationship between military means and diplomatic, military, and political objectives "must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary," not just established at the beginning of the military engagement; (5) No battle is worth fighting or will be successful without "reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people" and Congress; and (6) The commitment of U.S. troops to a conflict should be an act of last resort.

The Reagan administration had approved Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and although initially welcomed by many Muslims in Lebanon the United States came to be seen as too pro-Israel, pro-Christian, and anti-Muslim. U.S. forces' unintentional shelling of civilians did not help matters.

Furthermore, the re-entry of the MFN was not accompanied by a serious understanding of strategy, objectives and the relationship between them. So President Reagan decided to withdraw U.S. forces from what would likely become a major military quagmire for the United States, instead of a multinational peacekeeping operation.

TheCurmudgeon
05-29-2013, 01:20 PM
I find that list self serving, particularly the following:


(2) Combat, if agreed upon, should be undertaken with the intention of military victory, using whatever forces and resources are needed to achieve that goal; (3) Political and military objectives must be clearly defined before entering a conflict; (4) The relationship between military means and diplomatic, military, and political objectives "must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary," not just established at the beginning of the military engagement

(2) is in direct conflict with (3) and (4) and seems to stand in violation of the idea os using military force in a limited manner to deter further agression, a perfectly reasonable use of the military. Military victory may be independent of political objectives. In addition, if you begin a fight with the intent of finishing it that stands in contradition to the idea of reassessing the situation and adjusting the means you use to achieve your goal.

While it seems like a platatude that you never start a military fight without the intent of military victory, I think it is better to say that you should never start a military action without the realization that you may have to take it to its natrual conclusion.

davidbfpo
05-29-2013, 02:38 PM
Patrick Cockburn's article, cited by 'Red Rat' is good, but I also found this anonymous article by a Syrian in Aleppo of value. It starts with:[QUOTE]So what went wrong? Or to be more accurate, where did we go wrong? How did a once inspirational and noble popular uprising calling for freedom and basic human rights degenerate into an orgy of bloodthirsty sectarian violence, with depravity unfit for even animals? Was it inevitable and wholly unavoidable, or did it not have to be this way?[/QUOTE

Needless to say the answer is not optimistic.

Link:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/syria-revolution-aleppo-assad.html

Bill Moore
05-29-2013, 05:39 PM
I find that list self serving, particularly the following:



(2) is in direct conflict with (3) and (4) and seems to stand in violation of the idea os using military force in a limited manner to deter further agression, a perfectly reasonable use of the military. Military victory may be independent of political objectives. In addition, if you begin a fight with the intent of finishing it that stands in contradition to the idea of reassessing the situation and adjusting the means you use to achieve your goal.

While it seems like a platatude that you never start a military fight without the intent of military victory, I think it is better to say that you should never start a military action without the realization that you may have to take it to its natrual conclusion.

Are you implying our involvement would be part of its "natural" evolution and a foreign imposed solution is natural. The list reflect the wisdom of lessons observed repeatedly throughout history, but they are not lessons learned. What exactly do you think the military can accomplish there?

TheCurmudgeon
05-30-2013, 12:33 AM
Are you implying our involvement would be part of its "natural" evolution and a foreign imposed solution is natural. The list reflect the wisdom of lessons observed repeatedly throughout history, but they are not lessons learned. What exactly do you think the military can accomplish there?

I never said anything about anything being "natural." I only disliked the way the quote limited the idea of using military force as part of a collective group of way and means to pursue our national interests. Based on that quote we would never conduct a NEO action - we must be prepared to invade and control the entire country.

Bill Moore
05-30-2013, 02:38 AM
I never said anything about anything being "natural." I only disliked the way the quote limited the idea of using military force as part of a collective group of way and means to pursue our national interests. Based on that quote we would never conduct a NEO action - we must be prepared to invade and control the entire country.

I didn't read it that way, this is classical so-called Powell Doctrine and a NEO is a specific task that the military can accomplish. In Lebanon the military successfully evacuated the Palestinians, but when they went back to enforce a non-existent peace agreement between the fighting parties they failed. I'm for using the military, perhaps more than we do now to achieve certain objectives. I have grown to be pretty critical our occupation/transformation efforts.

TheCurmudgeon
05-30-2013, 11:25 AM
I am with you on limited use. I believe the military can be used as to offer both a carrot and a stick, but I fear the American mindset is similar to how I interrupted your quote and how you interpreted my response - it is all or nothing.

On a separate note:

This situation is far more complicated than we simple American's, with our "shot-out" mentality to solutions, are capable of understanding. What "may" have started as a democratic revolt has clearly morphed into something different with multiple societal and political cleavages feeding the fire. The opposition cannot agree on a government in abstentia and the Muslim Brotherhood are changing the narrative to a ethnic/sectarian fight, one more apt to gain ground in a middle east where conflicts are fueled by identity not ideology.

Whether we should get involved is a question of national interest. Since it is doubtful that one could argue that intervention on the side of the insurgents is justified as a means of spreading democracy, I doubt that we could continue to justify our actions as part of a plan to remove a dictatorial leader since whomever comes to power next will probably be no better, and potentially far worse. Whether national interest now includes humanitarian intervention is part of a broader question of whether humanitarian intervention is justified at all. Security interests seem to be primarily around what will happen to the chemical weapons should a terrorist affiliated group ultimately end up in power, or at least in control of some of those weapons. The Israeli solution may be our best choice. I just don't want the US to believe that limited air strikes must inevitably lead to a full scale invasion and occupation or that under the right circumstance the US could not be part of a broader peacekeeping mission in the former country of Syria.

TheCurmudgeon
05-30-2013, 12:26 PM
I didn't read it that way, this is classical so-called Powell Doctrine and a NEO is a specific task that the military can accomplish.

The Powell Doctrine is wholly inappropriate in this case. The Powell doctrine says if you broke it, you own it. We did not break Syria. It is already broke. We have no obligation to fix it, so we do not have to restore a working government. Our interests and the actions we take to further those interests, can be far more limited.

carl
05-30-2013, 03:16 PM
Bashar says the S-300s have arrived.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/world/middleeast/syria.html?hp&_r=1&

I wonder if he is trying to bluff the Israelis.

davidbfpo
05-30-2013, 04:19 PM
Carl,

This AM on BBC Radio Four an Israeli commentator was asked about the arrival of the SAMs, his response was noteworthy; these are not his exact words:
Our concern is not over the arrival of the missiles, which may not be ready to use for sometime. It is whether they provide cover for our enemies to launch attacks and if should they fall into the hands of our enemies. Israel has taken a very clear stance on what is happening in Syria. We support no-one.

Given the internal situation such weapons - when ready - do not help the regime to win the civil war. Nor do they deter foreign or more accurately US intervention. What is their actual value is unclear. They may act as a visible sign within Syria that Russia remains a helpful friend; which I am sceptocal about.

Note Russia this week was reported as evacuating all Tajik nationals, after their government said leave.

Bill Moore
05-30-2013, 10:16 PM
The Powell Doctrine is wholly inappropriate in this case. The Powell doctrine says if you broke it, you own it. We did not break Syria. It is already broke. We have no obligation to fix it, so we do not have to restore a working government. Our interests and the actions we take to further those interests, can be far more limited.

That was Secretary of State Powell, not Gen Powell. That was never part of the original Powell doctrine.

Bill Moore
05-31-2013, 08:27 AM
Bashar says the S-300s have arrived.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/world/middleeast/syria.html?hp&_r=1&

I wonder if he is trying to bluff the Israelis.

Quick draw another Red Line and dare someone to cross it :(, when they do take three steps back and draw another one.

Most of our strategic assessments point out that we live in a multipolar world and while the U.S. is still the sole superpower its power is relatively less and increasingly less year by year. This means other nations are not going to dance to our music just because we ask, or tell, them to. Some of our leaders still seem to have a hard time grasping this and are quick to recommend flexing our economic and military muscle to get our way. If Sen McCain and others in Congress want us to pursue military action in support of one faction of the resistance then they should be prepared to apply all necessary force needed to achieve whatever clear policy objective they come up with and accept the potential escalation of the conflict into a much broader conflict involving other states who will wage war in a way we are probably not anticipating. Even a limited military action on our part can potentially lead us into something much larger, or create a situation that is worse than the current one in the region.

davidbfpo
06-03-2013, 04:36 PM
A short paper, lovely graphics and a selection of obituaries. This US paper's correct title is 'A Joint Study Charting the Evolving Role of Sunni Foreign Fighters in the Armed Uprising Against the Assad Regime in Syria'.

The role of foreign fighters has appeared before, there's even a thread.

On a quick skim read some nuggets here:https://flashpoint-intel.com/upload/syria_martyrs/2013-06-02_Convoy_of_Martyrs_Report.pdf

carl
06-03-2013, 08:50 PM
Most of our strategic assessments point out that we live in a multipolar world and while the U.S. is still the sole superpower its power is relatively less and increasingly less year by year. This means other nations are not going to dance to our music just because we ask, or tell, them to. Some of our leaders still seem to have a hard time grasping this and are quick to recommend flexing our economic and military muscle to get our way. If Sen McCain and others in Congress want us to pursue military action in support of one faction of the resistance then they should be prepared to apply all necessary force needed to achieve whatever clear policy objective they come up with and accept the potential escalation of the conflict into a much broader conflict involving other states who will wage war in a way we are probably not anticipating. Even a limited military action on our part can potentially lead us into something much larger, or create a situation that is worse than the current one in the region.

I agree with you in broad principle, but often I think we judge other countries to have far more power than they have because we are spineless putzes. Russia is an example. They are in the midst of a demographic disaster. Their armed forces are a wreck. Their leadership is composed of kleptocrats. In sum, they got mostly nothing much but nerve. Yet, we allow Putin to keep our Secretary of State cooling his heels for 3 hours before a meeting. That kind of thing does not impress the hard men of the world. No, it does impress them, rather a lot. It impresses upon them that we are putzes and they can pretty much do as they please. That is not a good thing.

Now I am not saying that the 843rd Bomb Wing should launch over that but at least Mr. Kerry should have left and gone to the movies and turned off his cell phone for a few hours.

carl
06-04-2013, 03:12 PM
I was thinking about how we are looking to the hard men of the world. Last year or the year before we told the Russians not to deliver S-300s to the Iranians and they didn't. This year they announce they are going to deliver S-300s to the Syrians who are close allies to the Iranians. When those missiles are delivered I expect for every Syrian learning the system there will be an Iranian sitting next to him. When that happens there is no longer any reason for Russia to further defer delivering the S-300s already ordered to Iran. Our obvious lack of resolve is going to make the world rather interesting from a SEAD point of view.

I don't see how Israel can let those missiles reach operational status in Syria. They will be destroyed/disabled somewhere along the way, Russians killed in the process or not. The life insurance policy premiums for the Russian techs going along with those missiles must be very high.

davidbfpo
06-04-2013, 07:25 PM
It is rather curious that there is the prospect of Russian supplied of S-300 missiles versus a soon to take place US exercise in Jordan, that will "leave behind" its manned Patriot batteries.

From FP Situation Report:
Patriot batteries to remain in Jordan after Eager Lion. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has decided to leave the Patriot missile system in Jordan after the big training exercise there in order to give the United States options to play a more active role in Syria, like creating a no-fly zone

Johannes U
06-06-2013, 02:20 PM
After Syrian rebels captured and occupied the Bravo gate (Syrian side) for some time today, the Austrian government apparently has decided today to withdraw its 390-strong contingent within the next 2 to 3 weeks.

I wonder what that will mean for the continuation of UNDOF and for the region as a whole, now that there will be no more puffer between the Syrian forces (both rebels and freedom fighters) and the IDF ... :confused:

SWJ Blog
06-07-2013, 08:08 AM
Aiding Opposition Civilian Authority in Syria (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/aiding-opposition-civilian-authority-in-syria)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/aiding-opposition-civilian-authority-in-syria) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
06-11-2013, 07:08 PM
Recommended by IISS Emile Hokayem a Carnegie commentary, in summary:
The fall of the Syrian town of Qusair to Assad’s forces shows that the regime is poised to secure its position for the long term. The opposition must address its serious shortcomings.....If the strategic equilibrium that has emerged since November 2012 tips further, it will be a decisive shift in the regime’s favor.

It ends with:
The regime will not achieve a total military victory, but it can consolidate its grip on Syria’s cities, stabilize its economic situation, and hold the rebels at bay in peripheral parts of the country. Assad would be left ruling a Myanmar on the Mediterranean, boycotted by the West and some Arab states but surviving on the support of its external allies and the informal economic and trade networks that are already forming across its borders.

Something has to give—and soon. Time is running out. The regime cannot win. But the opposition can lose.

Link:http://carnegie-mec.org/2013/06/07/syria-s-strategic-balance-at-tipping-point/g95a

Bill Moore
06-12-2013, 09:58 AM
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4390622,00.html


Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad are massing around Aleppo in preparation for an offensive to retake the city and build on battlefield gains that have swung the momentum of Syria's war to Assad and his Hezbollah allies.

Rebels reported signs of large numbers of Shiite Muslim fighters flowing in from Iraq to help Assad end the civil war that has killed at least 80,000 people and forced 1.6 million Syrians to flee abroad.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/20136117758639885.html


Deadly blasts shake Syrian capital

Pro-government TV says at least 14 killed in attacks, day after Gulf states pledge sanctions against Hezbollah

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/10/obama-administration-to-decide-on-sending-syria-air-power-this-week/


Obama to decide whether U.S. will send Syrian rebels air power this week

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4390298,00.html


White House meetings are planned over the coming days, as Syrian President Bashar Assad's government forces are apparently poised for an attack on the key city of Homs, which could cut off Syria's armed opposition from the south of the country. As many as 5,000 Hezbollah fighters are now in Syria, officials believe, helping the regime press on with its campaign after capturing the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border last week.


Secretary of State John Kerry postponed a planned trip Monday to Israel and three other Mideast countries to participate in White House discussions, said officials who weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/201361271425112509.html


Austria began pulling out its UN peacekeepers from the Golan Heights days after Vienna decided to quit the mission over deteriorating security concerns.

Vienna’s decision on Tuesday came after Syrian opposition rebels briefly seized the Quneitra crossing late last week, in an incident in which two UN troops were injured.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013611125143535185.html


Several rockets launched from Syria have hit the eastern Lebanese town of Hermel, a bastion of the Shia group Hezbollah, reportedly killing at least one person and wounding several others.

Tuesday's incident was the latest in a series of cross-border rocket attacks on Shia areas of Lebanon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-syria-crisis-sectarianism-idUSBRE95B04320130612


(Reuters) - Shi'ite Muslims in the Gulf, alarmed by the shrill sectarian rhetoric of some Sunni clerics after Lebanon's Hezbollah militia entered Syria's civil war, fear they will be blamed and may be victimized for the bloodshed.

"Hate language is on the rise, in the press, on social media and even at lectures in mosques. Shi'ites in general are being blamed for what's happening in Syria," said Waleed Sulais, a researcher at the Saudi Adalah Centre for Human Rights.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/11/how_the_war_in_syria_has_helped_to_inspire_turkeys _protests


How the War in Syria Has Helped to Inspire Turkey's Protests

The anti-Erdogan protesters in Turkey have many grievances - but the prime minister's record of support for the Syrian rebels may turn out to be the most explosive.


Not all opponents of Erdogan's Syria policy are motivated by concerns about economics or security. Some secular Turks are staunch supporters of Assad, whom they see as a bulwark against Islamism. One female protestor in Taksim (who asked to remain anonymous) told me that, while she agrees with the government's stance on admitting Syrian refugees, her loyalties remain with Assad. "Our government supports terrorists here, like the Syrian rebels."

Such sentiments are especially widespread among Turkish Alawites (Alevis), adherents of the same sect who are a crucial part of Assad's power base. With a population of around 10 million, Turkish Alawites make up 15 percent of the population. (Some estimates put the number as high as one-third.) One of their most prominent members is Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), who has long been one of the harshest critics of the prime minister's Syria policy. Though Kilicdaroglu denounces the Syrian president as a "dictator," he also allowed a delegation from his party to pay an official visit to Assad in Damascus three months ago.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-behind-the-lines/the-changing-shape-of-syrias-civil-war/

The Changing Shape of Syria’s Civil War


The war has already had an impact. Even if the conflict ends, Sunnis and Shias will be more divided than ever before — and not just within Syria. Iran is terrified of losing its closest ally, and will not allow Sunnis to gain control of Syria. With the ability to stir conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, any international negotiating without Iranian involvement would be folly. The conflict has also stirred up the question of the Golan Heights, the strategically important slither of rocky land between Syria and Israel that has been under Israeli occupation for 40 years — and which Israel will not give up without a fight. The Syrian civil war also presents an opportunity for Kurds to assert their own independence.

Syria and the Middle East as we know it will never be the same again.

I have to wonder if those who promoted the invasion to transform the Middle East are at least questioning their underlying logic. I also wonder if the COINdistas still think we addressed the underlying causes of tension in the region.

http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/parents-ask-free-syrian-army-find-sons-killers-498733

The challenge of deciding who to provide aid to.

Parents ask Free Syrian Army to find son's killers


The parents of a 14-year-old boy who was killed by Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in Syria’s Aleppo after being accused of heresy were heartbroken over their son’s death and said they had resorted to the opposition Free Syrian Army to help them find the killers.

AdamG
06-16-2013, 03:17 AM
World exclusive: Iran will send 4,000 troops to aid Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria

US urges Britain and France to join in supplying arms to Syrian rebels as MPs fear that UK will be drawn into growing Sunni-Shia conflict.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/world-exclusive-iran-will-send-4000-troops-to-aid-bashar-alassads-forces-in-syria-8660358.html

bourbon
06-16-2013, 03:29 PM
Interesting interview with CIA legend Milt Bearden, who oversaw the covert supply program to the Afghan muj in the 1980's:

Interview: 'Don't Try to Convince Yourself That You're in Control' - Afghan lessons for arming the Syrian rebels from the CIA's mujahideen point man (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/14/interview_milton_bearden_arming_syrian_rebels?page =full), by Joshua Keating. Foreign Policy, 14 June 2013.

With the announcement that the United States is planning to begin providing small arms to rebel groups in Syria, Bearden is blunt as to what the CIA's experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s should teach us. "The lesson here is that once we start providing anything to the rebels, we better understand that if they win, we own it," he told Foreign Policy on Friday, June 14. "The big cheerleaders on the Hill for doing this aren't focused on this. The biggest lesson from the Afghan thing was that over a 10-year period we supplied all this stuff and then walked away once the Soviets left. The same Congress that was cheerleading the brave freedom fighters against the Soviet occupation -- and they were brave and they did suffer brutally -- just walked away and wouldn't give them a nickel. If we start arming anyone in this enterprise, implicit in that is that we own it once the Assad regime falls."

I believe this is a terrible mistake in the making.

Madhu
06-16-2013, 04:15 PM
I fear too that we are making a huge mistake by getting more involved in the Syrian Civil war.

On Bearden, though, I've never been a fan of the "we walked away and that's why 9-11 happened" narrative. While there is certainly some truth to it, it's too simple a narrative. It doesn't take into account other things that happened including the larger context that the first Bush administration was dealing with. Nuclear proliferation and other issues came to the fore. The CIA plan of outsourcing our dealings in Afghanistan through intermediaries was recognized as problematic even at the time.


CUSAP had one big name on its original eight-person board: Milton Bearden, a former CIA official whose name carries weight on Afghanistan because he helped run the war there against the Soviets in the 1980s. When Bearden testified about Afghanistan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the fall, John Kerry called him a "legendary former CIA case officer." But in his testimony Bearden did not advertise his ties to Wardak or to the company's Defense Department contracts; Bearden is on the advisory board of NCL, a firm with millions of dollars at stake in Afghanistan. ("Aram," he said when I reached him on his mobile phone, "I don't have anything to talk to you about, so go ahead and do your story." Then he hung up.) Another former board member, Hedieh Mirahmadi, a prominent expert on Islamic radicalization, told me she had never been to a CUSAP board meeting. "I don't actually know what they did," she told me.


www.thenation.com/article/afghan-lobby-scam#ixzz2WOUALQoy (http://www.thenation.com/article/afghan-lobby-scam#ixzz2WOUALQoy)


The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has enabled Pakistan to acquire sophisticated American arms intended mainly for use against India and to scoff at the Symington Amendment with impunity. Likewise, it is important for the American right to distort the Indian-Soviet military relationship to justify a new round of United States arms to Pakistan, forgetting that Indian military dependence on the Soviet Union was created by American arms to Pakistan. Meanwhile, massive economic aid for Pakistan - the third largest per capita foreign aid the United States gives to any country after Israel and Egypt - has enabled it to enjoy the highest economic growth rate in South Asia. It is no wonder Pakistan is not serious about resolving the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/19/opinion/l-the-myth-of-pakistan-as-a-heroic-us-ally-787087.html

I'm not sure how the CIA types that ran the operation against the Soviets get away with their narratives completely unchallenged. The brave freedom fighters turned out to be a complex mix, to put it mildly.

The biggest lesson is that our running the operation through our allies became problematic in addition to, "we will end up owning regime change." More problematic than self-aggrandizing CIA types allow. Myth and reality are two different things. They didn't know where the money was going and they didn't really know what was going on. Freedom fighters my $%#. Nice job, Foreign Policy. No one else on the digital rolodex to write op eds?

Dayuhan
06-17-2013, 11:31 PM
Just for reference, a view from the Sunni side...

http://www.arabnews.com/news/455344

Bill Moore
06-18-2013, 11:33 AM
"I'm not sure how the CIA types that ran the operation against the Soviets get away with their narratives completely unchallenged. The brave freedom fighters turned out to be a complex mix, to put it mildly.

The biggest lesson is that our running the operation through our allies became problematic in addition to, "we will end up owning regime change." More problematic than self-aggrandizing CIA types allow. Myth and reality are two different things. They didn't know where the money was going and they didn't really know what was going on. Freedom fighters my $%#. Nice job, Foreign Policy. No one else on the digital rolodex to write op eds?"

Agree with all. Seems they forget our assistance helped oust the Soviets combat forces but Moscow still supported the government while Pakistan was focused on radicalizing the Talibs to pursue their interests in Afghanistan. That makes you wonder who we were supposed to provide aid to? The various Afghan tribes killing each other, the Soviet sponsored government, or the Talibs? Typical CIA rhetoric: blame, deny, and counter accuse.

carl
06-18-2013, 06:36 PM
Bill M.:

I think going in would be a good thing, but with provisos. If we knew enough about the players to pick a side. If we were willing to run that side strongly. if we were really willing to back that side with whatever it took to win. if we actually decided we really wanted to win. If we would determine that we would persevere despite inevitable setbacks. If we were willing to change sides depending on how the situation played out. If we were willing to tell the Russkis to go stuff it. If we told the Iranians they ain't seen nothing yet if they keep horsin' around. If we told Israel that the days of us dancing to their tune were over, they will survive as a state but we play the music. Same thing with the Gulf States, especially the Gulf states. And finally if we were willing to frankly explain all this to ourselves and how these efforts would benefit us and the whole region. The Americans would see it and go along in my opinion. The Americans would.

The problem is the inside the beltway elites won't do any of this stuff, so we shouldn't do it. But we will do it because there are bureaucratic bones to be made in the spook and State worlds; and political bones to be made elsewhere. They don't serve us anymore. They serve themselves.

omarali50
06-18-2013, 10:24 PM
Its unrealistic and snarky ,but considering what great evils the US may be about to unleash in Syria, i did think of a rant that goes like this:
I think its a net positive for the US and the world if the US stays completely out of distant conflicts. I realize that there are several scenarios in which US intervention may appear desirable. But they are frequently mutually incompatible and contradictory. And in almost every case (from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria and beyond) it seems that the US has no coherent policy and people trot out one or the other justification as needed and then play bait and switch or forget their own previous stance. For example:
1. World cop. This obviously works if most of the world's powers actually agree a cop is needed and that the US is that cop. Its a great idea, but is it really what the US does well or can do?
2. Imperialism. Suppose the US is an imperialist power making a move that will HELP said imperialist power in terms of money, influence, goodwill, whatever. Well, 2 trillion in the hole, what is there to show? IN any case, since many Americans WITHIN the ruling elite are conflicted about the notion of being an imperial power its hard to see how this could ever work. A lot of officials will not be clear about what they are doing. So they will make mistakes.
3. Israel. Even this explanation is wearing thin. Suppose (for the sake of argument) that the US is actually doing all this to help Israel become X percent bigger. Does it actually help? Wouldnt it be cheaper to just buy Israel some more land.
4. Do-gooder. Well, we need not bother with that story.
So why not stay out? The only solid argument in favor of doing something is that otherwise a lot of people will become unemployed. But is there no way we can have all these people digging holes in their backyard and filling them in at 150 dollars an hour? that would be cheaper and less painful than mucking around in Syria as part of some confused imperialist plot.
Seriously.

Dayuhan
06-19-2013, 11:00 AM
I think going in would be a good thing, but with provisos. If we knew enough about the players to pick a side. If we were willing to run that side strongly.

Do you really think we're in a position to "run" a side at all, let alone strongly?


if we were really willing to back that side with whatever it took to win. if we actually decided we really wanted to win.

We would need a clear idea of what a "win" would be. Have we got one?


If we were willing to tell the Russkis to go stuff it. If we told the Iranians they ain't seen nothing yet if they keep horsin' around. If we told Israel that the days of us dancing to their tune were over, they will survive as a state but we play the music. Same thing with the Gulf States, especially the Gulf states.

We can tell the Russians, the Iranians, the Israelis, and the Gulf States any damned thing we please. They can and will tell us to go stuff it, and there will not be a thing we can do about it. What makes you think we're in a position to play the music and expect anyone else to dance? If you tell the Russians, Iranians, Israelis, or Gulf Arabs what to do and they tell you to stick it where the sun don't shine (which they will), what do you do about it?


And finally if we were willing to frankly explain all this to ourselves and how these efforts would benefit us and the whole region. The Americans would see it and go along in my opinion. The Americans would.
I can't see how we'd explain that, because it wouldn't benefit us, or the region. You might get the notoriously credulous Americans to go along if you spun them a good enough tale, but why would the rest of the region go along, especially if part of the package is us telling everyone else what to do?


The problem is the inside the beltway elites won't do any of this stuff, so we shouldn't do it.

They can't do any of that stuff. They haven't the leverage.


But we will do it because there are bureaucratic bones to be made in the spook and State worlds; and political bones to be made elsewhere. They don't serve us anymore. They serve themselves.

We may not do it, though it looms perilously close. I hope somebody in the picture has the fortitude to just say no, because I can see no upside whatsoever to "going in". We have no clear desired end state, at least none we can reasonably hope to achieve. We haven't the capacity to control our allies or our proxies. We will probably be worked by both. What's to gain?

Madhu
06-19-2013, 03:56 PM
It's likely that many of you have already seen the following piece:


Always bureaucratically adept, even if operationally incompetent in far too many cases, the CIA already has the Washington end of the action. But if weapons are to be supplied, it is essential to call on the only Americans who can tell the difference between Sunni bad guys who only want to oppress other Syrians and the really bad guys who happen to be waging their global jihad in Syria. What's needed are true experts, people who really speak the region's Arabic: the regular U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers who successfully sponsored and then effectively controlled the Sunni tribal insurgents in Iraq whose "awakening" defeated the jihadists who were attacking U.S. troops.

This sort of splits the difference between the Coindinista/Cointra argument but only at its very edges. Certain skills are useful in retention, it seems, but a civil war with the US supporting one side is something altogether different than a colonial pacification.

This is above my head, so interested in thoughts on the piece.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/17/five_rules_for_arming_rebels_syria?page=0,1

ganulv
06-19-2013, 04:15 PM
I’m not quite sure I buy that the CIA is operationally inept. I’m not saying that they aren’t, but given the nature of their operations, how would we know?

And given Mr. Luttwak’s consulting work with the military I’m not quite sure that his piece doesn’t amount to concern trolling (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=concern+troll).

Madhu
06-19-2013, 04:39 PM
But everything seems like some kind of trolling when it comes to foreign policy commentary these days, given the contracts and contacts and backgrounds of so many people involved writing pieces. Everyone has a consultancy.

As for the CIA, I have no idea either but there is always a certain vibe from some writers that are former CIA that irritates - a certain vainglory. True for the military as well.

ganulv
06-19-2013, 05:11 PM
But everything seems like some kind of trolling when it comes to foreign policy commentary these days, given the contracts and contacts and backgrounds of so many people involved writing pieces. Everyone has a consultancy.

I also think there is something inherent in the publishing biz, especially the publishing online biz. I have been trying to break into freelance writing over the past few months and the experience has lead me to see some of what is going on behind the curtain as pieces make their way out for public consumption. A lot of the material that ends up online is space-filler. And if it gets more views via pushing buttons, all the better (for the publisher, editor, and author, at least; not necessarily for the public).


As for the CIA, I have no idea either but there is always a certain vibe from some writers that are former CIA that irritates - a certain vainglory. True for the military as well.

I always wonder how representative those guys are. One of the things I know a lot about is anthropology. Most of the rock star anthropologists within academia and the few that from time to time get public notice are typically, at least in my opinion, good but not great. Chance and a talent for marketing themselves put them in the limelight.

carl
06-19-2013, 05:39 PM
Mr. Luttwak stated:
What's needed are true experts, people who really speak the region's Arabic: the regular U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers who successfully sponsored and then effectively controlled the Sunni tribal insurgents in Iraq whose "awakening" defeated the jihadists who were attacking U.S. troops.

If he actually believes that, I think he is very mistaken as to what happened in Iraq when the Sunni tribes changed their minds. First off, those officers (like Cavguy) were experts in what was going on in their part of Iraq because they had been hanging around on the ground, in their part of Iraq, for a long time. And they were only so expert.

Second off, I am not sure the tribes were sponsored or "effectively controlled" by anybody but themselves. They came to their own conclusions and we had people on the ground at the time who had the knowledge and capability to take advantage of that. Patriquin, McFarland and the guys describe in 'The Snake Eaters' aren't hanging out in schwarma shops on the outskirts of Alepo right now.

Third off, the tribes in Iraq were, from what I've read, fairly cohesive social entities. When the sheiks changed their minds, it meant something. I don't know what the state of the tribes are in Syria. Does Mr. Luttwak?

This statement by Mr. Luttwak seems facile. He also said this:
Do not invite an equal and opposite response by another great power.

The great power he is referring to is Russia. The Soviet Union was a great power. Russia is a demographic disaster ruled by a kleptocracy with an economy that is dependent, still, upon selling extracted resources. They are afflicted with a simmering insurgency (cies) in their south that they haven't been able to make go away in decades. Their military is not so hot. They may have been able to beat up on Georgia but that does not a 'great power' make them. In my view this statement by Mr. Luttwak ascribes power to a state that mostly is nervy.

They will get away with that for only so long (hopefully).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emAiiXpA8Y

J Wolfsberger
06-20-2013, 01:06 PM
I suspect Mr. Luttwak fancies himself a 21st century Herman Kahn.

He's wrong.

The article did make some good points, but failed dismally by not even raising the central question: Why should we do anything?

We don't have any friends in this fight. I don't think there's any of them I'd WANT as a friend. At best, there are some innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. Fine, let's establish protected safe havens. But as for the rest, as far as I'm concerned they can slaughter each other to their bloodthirsty, savage little hearts' content and Shaitan can sort 'em out.

Dayuhan
06-20-2013, 11:47 PM
I am not sure the tribes were sponsored or "effectively controlled" by anybody but themselves.

Very true, and Luttwak's demand that the US "lay some ground rules for the endgame" seems to me an exercise in fantasy. Various rebel groups will make whatever promises they think will get them equipped by the US. If they win, they will do what they want to do, not what they agreed to do. The idea that helping someone allows us to control that someone is utterly specious.


The Soviet Union was a great power. Russia is a demographic disaster ruled by a kleptocracy with an economy that is dependent, still, upon selling extracted resources. They are afflicted with a simmering insurgency (cies) in their south that they haven't been able to make go away in decades. Their military is not so hot. They may have been able to beat up on Georgia but that does not a 'great power' make them. In my view this statement by Mr. Luttwak ascribes power to a state that mostly is nervy.

True to some extent, but great or not, the Russians have sufficient leverage (nuclear and hydrocarbon) to be able to do as they please in the region without fear of direct repercussions. They don't have to be particularly great to provide the "equal and opposite reaction" that is feared. They can provide arms and assistance, and they can get away with it. Iran and Hezbollah aren't great powers either, but they can and will intervene, and the US capacity to control them is limited by domestic political imperatives. Deploying US forces against either is not something Americans are going to want to do, for excellent reasons.

The whole mess illustrates why drawing red lines is such a bad idea. When those lines get crossed, you have to act, or seem impotent. That puts you in a position where your action is purely a response, and you're acting without clear, practical and achievable goals and in circumstances where no compelling US interest is at stake.

J. Wolfsberger's central question remains rather conspicuously unanswered. Why intervene at all? What desirable and achievable end state are we pursuing here?

carl
06-21-2013, 01:41 AM
Very true, and Luttwak's demand that the US "lay some ground rules for the endgame" seems to me an exercise in fantasy. Various rebel groups will make whatever promises they think will get them equipped by the US. If they win, they will do what they want to do, not what they agreed to do. The idea that helping someone allows us to control that someone is utterly specious.

The way we do it, yes. And that is probably true in some cases no matter what. But I still think that if we played the game hard enough, we could exercise much much more control than we think possible.

But that is really here nor there because we are so inept that we will be in effect slinging in weapons blindly. That isn't such a good thing.


True to some extent, but great or not, the Russians have sufficient leverage (nuclear and hydrocarbon) to be able to do as they please in the region without fear of direct repercussions. They don't have to be particularly great to provide the "equal and opposite reaction" that is feared. They can provide arms and assistance, and they can get away with it. Iran and Hezbollah aren't great powers either, but they can and will intervene, and the US capacity to control them is limited by domestic political imperatives. Deploying US forces against either is not something Americans are going to want to do, for excellent reasons.

Yes but what power they have I think is really a function of what we allow them to exercise, at least in Russia's case. That doesn't make it any less real on the ground in Syria, but it is what we allow.

There are a lot of things we could do that don't involve troops on the ground. One thing that comes to mind is approving multiple LNG export terminals here in the US. That would be very bad for Russia because a few years after that, no more blackmailing the Europeans.

Our Navy could be a bit of a lever too. There is lots of precedent for shoving people around, to be blunt about it, at sea without getting close to shooting.


The whole mess illustrates why drawing red lines is such a bad idea. When those lines get crossed, you have to act, or seem impotent. That puts you in a position where your action is purely a response, and you're acting without clear, practical and achievable goals and in circumstances where no compelling US interest is at stake.

Yep, to an extent. I fear ultimately our interests will be very much at stake, but I can't think of any good way, that the US leadership would actually do, to affect things.


J. Wolfsberger's central question remains rather conspicuously unanswered. Why intervene at all? What desirable and achievable end state are we pursuing here?

In an ideal world, turn Syria into Malaysia, but that ain't gonna happen. Or at least keep the thing from spreading too far, prevent an AQ emirate in east Syria and west Iraq and install a regime (not PC for sure) that wouldn't slaughter too many people and cause a lot of trouble. But we ain't capable of achieving that given our leadership. So it is a moot point.