Syria in 2017 (April-December)

[Azor]

After Gorbachev stopped the military cooperation with Syria, and stopped all the arms deliveries too, in 1988, Damascus stopped paying all debts to the USSR, rumoured at between US15 and 17 billion. From 1988 until today, Syrians didn't pay a single cent of that debt back to Moscow.

According to SIPRI, Russia provided more than 50% of the value of the arms transferred to Syria from 1992 to 2013, with data being scarce for 2014 and unavailable for 2015-2015. Russia was the single largest transferor in 2002-2003 and 2009-2013, or for one third of that period. Has the Syrian account been up to date? Certainly not. But such is the cost of doing business in the arms trade, and neither Yeltsin nor Putin have had problems providing corporate welfare to Russian defense contractors.

With regard to Tartus, it is effectively a glorified dock. Russia has been unable to even thinly spread its assets across its existing bases, let alone take advantage of naval facilities in Syria and Vietnam. Recently, the Russian Navy had to cannibalize its Black Sea Fleet to reinforce its Baltic Fleet, and deploying the naval group off of Syria has been a strain.

As stated previously, I referred to “client” in a very loose sense given that Russia’s international relationships are far fewer and far weaker than those of the United States, and I won’t belabor the point further.

How often have the Russians violated the airspace of any NATO country with their IFF-transponders off since that ROE was introduced, back in 2015? How do you provide proofs for 0?

What new ROEs have been introduced? Thus far Russia has offered to turn transponders on if all NATO aircraft (i.e. spy planes) will do likewise.

In 2017, there were at least six incidents of Russian military aircraft flying in international Baltic airspace with their transponders off.

In 2016, there were 110 intercepts in the Baltic area, including at least four where Russian transponders were off, and six violations of Estonian airspace. In addition, there were ten violations of Bulgarian airspace and at least one unsafe interception by Russia over the Black Sea. NATO intercepts were lower for 2016 than 2014 and 2015, but are still far above 2013 levels.

…it's simply silly to insinuate whatever kind of 'what ifs' about a country with the GNP of Spain and its ability to challenge the USA in an open military confrontation. Even more so in an area 2000 kilometres away from its borders, where it has NO bases, nor even any true allies.

Well, Russia may be “Upper Volta”, but it still has “rockets”, does it not? This country has directly challenged American interests since 2008, and has invaded and partitioned two prospective American allies.

Regardless, you continue to have difficulty reading what I actually write. I never said that Russia would attack American or Coalition forces in Syria. What I did assert was that Russia probably would ignore a no-fly zone, no-drive zone and/or a blockade, and dare the Coalition to fire on it first. Despite lacking true allies, Russia would certainly have allies of convenience in Damascus and Teheran.

Consider the Berlin Airlift, when American and British forces were faced with overwhelming Soviet quantitative and qualitative superiority, frayed lines of communication and only perhaps two dozen atomic bombs were available to the U.S. once the B-29s had been deployed. The Allies violated the blockade peacefully, adhered to pre-blockade arrangements as much as possible, and were prepared to lose men and machines to Soviet aggression and the weather, if need be. The airlift was a logistical feat for the British and French, and humiliated the far stronger Soviet Union.

After the fall of Qaddafi and the refusal of Obama to treat him as an equal partner, Putin has been determined to humiliate the U.S. despite Russia’s weaknesses. Were the U.S. to establish a blockade or NFZ/NDZ, I believe that Putin would move heaven and earth to violate it and risk the lives of Russian sailors and pilots doing so.

Assad's air force is grounded, and he realizes he's left without troops to continue the war - which is why Iran launched its military intervention in Syria, in 2012. So what?

And? It all boils down to whether the U.S. would fire upon Russian and Iranian blockade runners.

Tehran concluded this already in 2011. Moscow didn't care until July 2015. As of 2013, neither was in a position to do anything about this.

Of course Moscow cared. It just had bigger fish to fry. Assuming that the blockade did not include airstrikes on Assad’s ground forces, it would have taken the rebels some time to defeat Assad, during which Moscow and Teheran could have tried to run men and materiel through the blockade, by air, sea and overland through Iraq, which was not exactly an American ally in 2013.

…didn't happen (at least not in 2013; otherwise it would've been reported). While, the Pentagon and various of NATO allies stopped something like 15 minutes before from launching a military operation against Assad.

If Obama had launched TLAMs or established a blockade in 2013, Assad would have been screaming for help.

…didn't happen (at least not in 2013). And was also not intended by the Russians.

Right. We are talking about your alternate timeline where Obama launches TLAMs and establishes a blockade.

This happened only in 2015 and then for reasons I explained above: Putler went to Syria because he was sure Oblabla wouldn't. Indeed, because the Iranians told him that Oblabla promised Tehran he wouldn't. And Iranians could do so because Oblabla told them so - in exchange for his silly nuclear deal, signed... drums... in July 2015.

The Iranians would have had this prerequisite long before the JCPOA was drafted, and would have signaled Obama if he had intervened in Syria in 2013.

And then, all provided you can still follow, explain me please: who can, say, prevent Turkey from closing its airspace for all Russian aircraft if it likes to do so? (And keep in mind: Turkey did close its airspace for Russian military aircraft, ever since September 2015). Who can prevent Jordan from closing its airspace for all Iranian aircraft? And: who was in control of the Iraqi government as of 2013?

Russia could take an alternate air route with refueling, rely upon sealift or transit via Iraq, which was led by Maliki, who would probably have allowed it. After all, Iraq currently hosts Iranian special forces and has sent Iranian-led Iraqi Shia militias to Syria.