Targeting......Syria......And The 5 Rings

[John T. Fishel]

Slap, what you go after depends on what you want to accomplish. First strategic question: what is the objective? Follows from; what is the US interest? Then there is the Clauswitzian question: what kind of war are you embarking on?

Last first: intervention in a sectarian war involving Iran as a support and through proxies. The US interests are to (1) weaken Iran and its proxies; (2) demonstrate the high cost to Russia of supporting a criminal regime; (3) protect the people of Syria to the extent possible given that we have failed to do so for over 2 years. Objectives: (1) make the use of chem weapons so costly that they will not be used again; (2) weaken Assad to the point where the rebels have a chance to defeat him (that means hurting the regime and therefore its allies); (2) strengthening those elements of the opposition that are most supportive of US goals in the region.

Rings: (1) degrade C2 especially that of the AF. (Leadership but limited); (2) Crater airfields (infrastructure); (3) destroy Syrian AF (deployed mil forces). If you look at this I am following the lead of GEN jack Keane

Cheers

JohnT

[slapout9]

Institute for the Study of War has a nice PDF form the requirements to degrade Syria's Air Force was done at the beginning of August this year to.


http://understandingwar.org/sites/de...anAirPower.pdf

[slapout9]

Link December to 2012 article from the Montgomery Advertiser by Colonel Warden on the idea of intervention in Syria. Read closely it suggest that Obama was thinking about serious intervention all the way back then.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/...erious-thought

[uwew]

Not really deterrence, but:

Leadership: Give Assad and his family an exit option. Due to sanctions and the threat of facing trial
in the Hague, they cant go anywhere and have to fight to the end with all means at their disposal.

Population: Give Alawites and Shiites a survival option. They face danger of elimination from Sunni islamist groups.
Their best bet now is staying loyal to Assad and his family.

[omarali50]

SPOT ON.
Any strike that does not target the leadership and any policy that does not include a VERY serious effort to figure out how to protect the Alawites and Christians in the aftermath is immoral and is going to create more problems than it solves.