Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[Bill Moore]

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/count...pare+Countries

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

http://www.voanews.com/content/syria...s/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....er-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]

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]

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]

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]

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-min...nam-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]

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]

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.