Russia’s
Intervention in Syria – a Reality-based Evaluation
By
The Saker
It
has been over one month since the Russians launched their military
and political operation in Syria and the time for hyperbole and flag
waving has clearly passed. Gone are the “most anticipated
showdown in recent history” along with rumors of MiG-31s, Russian
paratroopers, “thousands” of military personnel, ballistic
submarines and other such nonsense. And, contrary to what
some wrote, none of what happened was “coordinated with the White
House”. What I propose to do today is to evaluate what
has really has happened and to look at the Russian
options for the future. But first, a short restatement of what
really took place.
A
very daring operation by a small military
force
I
will never repeat this enough: the
Russian military forces is a small one.
Yes, they are flying an impressive amount of sorties every day
(anywhere between 50 to 80). But let’s compare that to the
Israeli air force effort during the war against Hezbollah in 2006
when the Israelis flew 400 (four hundred) sorties every day.
Add to this the massive Israeli artillery barrage and even attacks
from the Israeli Navy. Finally, let’s remember that Israel
was not fighting all of Hezbollah at all, but only 2nd tier Hezbollah
forces south of the Litani River totaling less than 1000 fighters
(Hezbollah kept all the best trained forces north of the Litani
River).
So
let’s compare the two operations:
Keep
in mind that the AngloZionist propaganda always presents the Israeli
military in general and the Israeli Air Force in particular as some
kind of quasi-invincible super-force of uber-trained heroes who are
the best of the best. One quick look at the chart above tells
you who the real super heroes are in reality.
But
my main point is not to ridicule the Israelis but to point out the
huge difference in size between the two forces and to ask a simple
question: if
a huge Israeli force could not defeat about 1’000 2nd
tier Hezbollah
fighters, what could the small Russian force realistically achieve?
This,
really, is THE key question. And, the answer, is quite
obvious: the
Russian force was never sent to Syria to defeat Daesh or even change
the course of the civil war.
The real goal of the Russian interventions were very limited in
purely military terms.
First
and foremost, the Russian tried to break the US and Turkish momentum
for an overt military intervention. In that they undoubtedly
succeeded. The second goal was to provide limited but
nonetheless crucial support for the Syrian military (including moral
support). Again, in that they also undoubtedly succeeded and on
most sectors the Syrians are on the offensive, however slowly.
Third, it now appears that one of the goals of the Russian
intervention was to basically provide the Syrians with a modern
air-defense capability and, in that, the Russians have also
succeeded, even if partially. Why do I say partially? Because
while the current air-defense capabilities of the Russian forces in
Syria are adequate to defend the Syrian airspace against a limited
attack, they are far from being sufficient to prevent the US from a
determined large scale attack. All the Russian did is raise the
costs of intervention for the USA, but they did not make it
impossible. Interestingly, the Iranians have declared today
that they have (finally!) finalized
the sale of Russian S-300s to Iran. In doing so Russia not
only helps protect Iran, but the
Russian military also helps a friendly country secure an airspace
which might be vital for Russian efforts in the future.
The
real “action” however was never military but political: Russia
literally forced the US to negotiate with Iran and, eventually, Syria
by making it politically impossible not to. The mantra “Assad
must go” is now gone and the AngloZionists have to at least give
the appearance of being willing to negotiate. Again, this is
undoubtedly a major victory for Russia.
Now
let’s look at the (predictable) bad news
Of
course, this is “bad news” only for those who from day 1 bought
into the “game changing” narrative about the Russian military
intervention. For those who, like myself, prefer facts to
slogans, none of the following came as a big surprise. In fact,
all this was predictable and predicted.
First,
Daesh did rapidly adapt to the Russian air campaign. The first
thing Daesh realized is that regardless of how intensive the Russian
bombing campaign was, it would have a very limited impact on the
actual line of contact, on the front line.
As far as I know,
the only location where the Russians did provide some limited close
air support was in the Latakia province and along the main highway to
the north. This is now slowly changing as the Russian are now
gradually shifting from operational targets to tactical ones, i.e.
instead of hitting command or training centers or ammo dumps, they
are now gradually increasing their support for the Syrian military
engaged in direct combat. Until last week or so, all the
Syrians had to support them on the ground were 30 year old MiG-21s
and MiG-23s. This is now reportedly changing in some key
sectors of the front.
Second,
instead of just hunkering down, Daesh went on the offensive in
several sectors of the front, thereby forcing the Syrians to send
troops to these sectors and that, in turn, prevented the Syrians from
concentrating enough firepower and manpower along their chosen axes
of attack to achieve an operational breakthrough. The lack of
manpower (the 4 year long civil war took a terrible toll on the
Syrians) is a crucial Syrian vulnerability which Daesh has very
skillfully exploited.
[Sidebar:
for those confused by the above, let me explain this: the general
rule of thumb – not an absolute rule for sure – in the military
is that the defending side has a big advantage over the attacker and
that therefore the attacking side needs roughly a 3:1 advantage over
the defender. Again, this is a very rough approximation and in
certain situations such as urban or mountain warfare this ratio might
go much higher up, to 6:1 and even higher. Now, the attacked
does not need to achieve this 3:1 ratio in the full length of the
front, only in the primary and, possibly, secondary sector of attack,
which is typically very narrow.
Hence the importance of making
deliberately detectable false attacks – to have the defender
concentrate his forces in the wrong place. By constantly going
on the offensive along various parts of the front Daesh is forcing
the Syrians to send in reinforcements which they would otherwise use
in the offensive. This is why the Syrians did not achieve any
operational breakthrough, at least so far]
The
(truly) unpredictable bad news: Flight 9268
More
and more signs are pointing to the very high probability that
Kogalymavia Flight 9268 was destroyed in mid-air by a bomb.
Interestingly, even Egyptian experts which everybody suspected of
wanting to cover this up are now saying that they
are 90% sure that a bomb caused the crash. The Russians
ain’t saying much, but all their actions are consistent with the
same hypothesis. While we will have to wait for the official
report to get the facts (yes, I trust this report simply because
there are too many countries involved and the Russians have no
reasons to lie) I personally have come to the conclusion that by
now the
destruction of Flight 9268 by a bomb is a reasonable working
hypothesis.
I believe that this bomb was placed inside the aircraft by one or
several individuals either sympathetic to Daesh and the Muslim
Brotherhood or simply for money. I am aware that there are
already plenty of goofballs out there offering much more exotic
explanations (from a fly-by-wire backdoor to an Israeli missile to an
energy weapon) but, being a great believer in Occam’s razor, I will
stick to the simplest explanation until I am provided with fact-based
logical reasons to think otherwise.
As
I have written in the past, I don’t believe that this tragedy will
have a significant impact on the Russian operation in Syria or on
Russian policies, if only because there
is really nothing much the Russians can do.
In
this case again, there is a lot of hyperbole around what the Russians
might do if it is proven that Daesh or Daesh sympathizers placed this
bomb on the aircraft.
Furthermore, since Daesh is really
a creation of the AngloZionist Empire, then the latter would have to
be held accountable, at least under the Command
Responsibility doctrine. The
Washington Post has already decided to preempt any such
suggestions by ridiculing any possible Russian or Egyptian
statements that the CIA might be involved. And considering the
“special relationship” the USA has the Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the
UAE or Qatar, any suggestions that these countries are involved would
also put Russia on a collision course with CENTCOM. Personally,
I think that it is perfectly fair and reasonable to place the
responsibility for all the
atrocities committed by al-Qaeda/ISIS/Daesh & Co on the
AngloZionist Empire, including the wars in Bosnia, Chechnia and
9/11. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, Qatar or Israel are all
just parts of the “Empire of Kindness” created by the US deep
state and while they might have disputes with each other they are
basically all serving the same interests. And there is no doubt
in my mind that Putin fully understands that. The problem is
that Russia is too weak a country to be able to declare that or even
to acquiesce to any such statements. Not only does the Kremlin
want to avoid a direct war with the USA, but even an open-ended
political and economic confrontation with the so-called “West” is
something which Russia is trying hard to avoid due to her comparative
weakness. I therefore don’t believe that Russia will take any
direct actions against the countries sponsoring and controlling
Daesh.
There
is another interesting hypothesis made by some observers.
According to them, the real purpose of the bombing of Flight 9268
would be to draw Russian into a ground operation against
Daesh. Here again, if that was the goal behind this atrocity, I
don’t believe that it will work. Just like Russia did
everything in her power to avoid openly intervening militarily in the
Donbass, Russia will do everything possible to avoid any ground
operation in Syria (for a detailed discussion of the Russian reasons
please see here and here).
If 60% of Russians are opposed to an direct intervention in the
Donbass, then there will be even much more opposition to any Russian
ground operation in Syria. Finally, as I have written many
times, the Russian military (as a whole) was never designed to
operate at beyond 1000km from the Russian borders and Russia
therefore simply lack that kind of power-projection capability.
Frustrating
as this might be, the right thing do to for Russia is to do nothing
or, more accurately, to do nothing different from what she has been
doing so far.
Russia
does have the capabilities to increase her military involvement in
Syria and I have already mentioned these options in the past.
They include using long-range aviation from Russia or, better, using
an Iranian air base. Alternatively, Russia could decide to
build a “Khmeimim 2″ airbase near Latakia and commit more
aircraft. Maybe I am wrong here, but I don’t see that as a
solution. In my opinion, there is a limited timeframe for the
Syrian military to achieve an operational victory against Daesh,
after that I see no other option left but an Iranian ground
intervention (which, by itself, would be a very complex matter and
which would trigger a massive anti-Iranian hysteria in the
US-controlled part of our planet).
So
all I am left with is the hope that the Russian General Staff’s
modeling capabilities are as good as they are supposed to be and that
the very limited but highly effective Russian intervention will be
sufficient to go from having a quantitative effect
to a qualitative one.
I hope that the sum of small tactical victories will eventually bring
Daesh to a breaking point significant enough to allow for a Syrian
operational success. I will gladly admit that at the end of the
day I trust Putin and the superb team of generals he has placed at
the head of the Russian armed forces.
In
conclusion I want to say that I am very proud of what the Russians
are doing in Syria, both militarily and politically. They have
shown an immense amount of courage and skills, at all levels of the
game. But I also think that it is crucial for all of us, who
are sympathetic to Russia and the anti-imperial Resistance worldwide,
to stop presenting this intervention like some kind of “game
changing” “done deal” in which the Russian Bear will crush all
the terrorists and restore peace to Syria.
Alas, we are still
very very far
from that. What
the Russian have provided is an absolutely vital and very daring last
minute temporary solution to a very dangerous situation about to get
much worse.
They did that knowing full well that they were at a huge political,
geographic and military disadvantage and that their move was
extremely risky. I would not say that Putin is risk averse, but
he is certainly very cautious and for him to have authorized such an
operation must have been very difficult. My guess is that what
made him decide in favor of this intervention is the (correct) belief
that the Russian forces in Syria are not only fighting for Syria, but
that they are first and foremost fighting for Russia. Every
Wahabi/Takfiri organization on the planet has already declared a
jihad against Russia and Russia has been fighting these crazies ever
since the USA and the Saudis literally federated them in Afghanistan
(the “brilliant” plan of Brzezinski and, later, Reagan).
The Russian people know and understand that, and Putin has repeated
that often enough to have this message fully sink in. This is
why the Russians will hold the course even if a major setback occurs
and this is also why they will not have an events like the bombing of
Flight 9268 by US-run puppet distract them from their real objective:
help the Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians defeat Dash.
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