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Xandu posted:This will hopefully appeal to some minority groups in Syria There's no way that Turkey is going to keep tolerating them if all of a sudden the SNC's platform also includes Kurdish activism.
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Jun 10, 2012 03:09
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That drat Satyr posted:That being said - I just wanted to ask: Xandu posted:http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/12/the_libyan_rorschach On the topic of Libya articles, this is a pretty good one that talks about the fraying at the edges (so to speak) of Libya.
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Jun 13, 2012 08:30
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SexyBlindfold posted:so is libya the only arab-springed country that isn't actively imploding right now? That depends, do you count stagnating and heading straight down the track to implosion as 'active'?
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Jun 20, 2012 09:31
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suboptimal posted:Bear in mind that in asymmetric warfare, the insurgent defender usually enjoys more advantages than the anti-insurgent forces. Insurgents have the ability to prepare fighting positions/tank traps/IEDs/etc when they take control over an area, so governments using conventional forces such as infantry units can be expected to incur heavy casualties. Look at how the US has used airpower in Iraq and Afghanistan as a way to inflict casualties on insurgent defenders and only using ground troops when no other options are available or to secure a contested area. The Syrian government's use of artillery and other stand-off weapons is pretty much the flip side of that coin. Additionally, it seems that the Syrian government is using the highly loyal Fourth Division (commanded by Bashar's brother Maher) to actually do the sweeping and clearing operations, as they did with the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs in late February. Introducing the rest of the army- which is full of poor Sunni conscripts- raises the risk of mass defections to the FSA. While I agree with you that the story as it is presented in the Western media isn't likely to be the whole one, this seems to be the recurring theme of the conflict during the past six months. Using American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is naive because the Syrians are using actual anti-insurgent tactics (i.e. massacre based) while the Americans are and were using the Vietnam vintage 'CI' nonstrategy. Even if 20 soldiers actually were killed (which is unlikely considering that this is third hand information), likely what will happen is in a couple days the neighborhood is going to be shelled to the ground and a truck full of SAF infantrymen are going to come through and shoot every military aged male they can find. If the FSA begins adopting the blockhouse strategy of merely trying to hold territory while inflicting as many casualties as possible they are very quickly going to find themselves on the losing side of this war.
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Jun 21, 2012 01:47
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suboptimal posted:Perhaps it wasn't clear from my post, but when I wrote about the Syrian government trying to minimize casualties, I was referring to their own military casualties, not the civilian populace. I agree with you- to imply that Assad gives a poo poo about civilian casualties in Homs, Hama, Qusayr and elsewhere would be pretty naive. Well, I think from a strategic perspective it is much more in the SAF's interest to initiate as much close combat as possible with the insurgents (as I was gesturing at with my criticism from the FSA's apparent adoption blockhouse tactics), because, unlike other armies where soldiers are more expensive, 20 dead soldiers is an extremely small price for crippling a local insurgency and gaining control of a city, where they would then be able to initiate their brutal mopping-up tactics. You might even be able to argue that a limited number soldier deaths are good for the Syrian state, as they seem ready and willing to use their funerals as opportunities for pro-state rallies and such. I wouldn't be surprised if the official figures of dead soldiers and policemen are actually inflated, considering that they are considerably higher than rebel figures.
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Jun 21, 2012 03:45
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farraday posted:I disagree. focusing on the cost of a soldier completely ignores the probability of morale loss leading to increased defections and simple desertion. further, the ample evidence of the Syrian Army negotiating to buy back destroyed/damaged tanks highly suggests they are very conscious of material losses which would tend to make close in tactics a bad idea. You have to remember that Syria is in the middle of a weapons embargo, which inflates the price of materiel. Even though a tank might be expensive enough to consider buying back from the FSA, finding Christians/Alawites/Shiites willing to fight and kill for Assad probably isn't nearly as expensive. Besides, if Assad keeps the ethnic antagonization up, there is probably little chance of minority soldiers defecting to the FSA (speaking of which, does anyone have any figures for the ethnic composition of the Syrian Army? I would presume it's mostly Alawite but people keep talking about Sunni conscripts defecting. tia)
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Jun 21, 2012 04:51
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V. Illych L. posted:It bears mentioning that massacre-based counterinsurgency tactics have a rather poor history with regards to efficiency as well. The nazis found that out in the Balkans and Russia, and to a lesser degree the Soviets in Afghanistan (these are the most obvious examples I can think of, there are probably more). I don't think those are as applicable because they were wars of occupation rather than rebellion crushing. Nearly every counter-rebellion that succeeded succeeded because of the use of massacres. Some examples of this would be the War in the Vendée and the Second Chechen War (not to mention the first Syrian uprising from 30 years ago).
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Jun 21, 2012 22:58
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Xandu posted:It has begun. I thought that the camps in southern Turkey were old news? I could've sworn I read about it in an Escobar article months ago.
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Jun 22, 2012 00:14
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If your best-case scenario is sending in the CIA you might want to re-evaluate your thinking, really.
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Jun 23, 2012 03:38
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Not Egypt related, but here's an interesting opinion piece in the Asia Times talking about how Russia's reaction to the Syrian situation may have everything to do with internal unrest over Putin. Apparently Putin is trying to improve his domestic popularity by looking powerful on the foreign stage, which necessitates butting heads with the U.S. whenever possible. It also brings up the possibility of Russian intervention, which the Russians themselves look nearly commited to.
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Jun 25, 2012 00:59
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Young Freud posted:Whelp, we've gone to war over similar casus belli. Don't see why this wouldn't be any different. Typically when countries go to war over slights such as fighter shootdowns, border guard shootouts or other nonsense like that they usually were looking to go to war anyway and just decided to seize the opportunity. I strongly doubt that Turkey wants or needs a war right now, and at any rate if Erdogan was on the warpath he would have been beating the drums a lot harder and a lot sooner.
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Jun 26, 2012 05:57
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McDowell posted:Why don't people stand up to these poo poo heads? Are they just well armed and unquestionably savage? Maybe people on the other side of the world have a different value system than you.
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Jul 2, 2012 09:18
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Xandu posted:No, some of those shrines stood for nearly 7 centuries and were well integrated into the local cultural landscape. This is a great example of a minority group seeking to impose their own values on everybody else in the area. Still, wondering why a foreign group of people doesn't rise in rebellion against a group you don't like (which you've also labeled as 'savages' hmm what does this remind me of) because they offended your cultural sensibilities is a very conceited position to have, especially when you ignore pretty much every other dimension in situation.
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Jul 2, 2012 09:44
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Davincie posted:Didn't SA sent troops into Bahrain to help repress the revolt or did that not end up happening? Either way, IIRC the revolt there got heavily repressed and it is a country that gets weapons from the west so that can't be helping. Yes. The protests were picking up steam, and since Saudi Arabia is incredibly paranoid of Shiites anywhere gaining power they sent troops in to crush them.
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Jul 9, 2012 01:00
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Golbez posted:Every time a domino falls, though, it seems to reinflame things. As Egypt wound down, Libya spun up; as Libya wound down, Syria spun up; as Syria winds down, who knows, Bahrain tries again? Yemen? I doubt that the Spring will travel back to the peninsula again. You have to remember that the Syrian uprising (as well as the Egyptians and to a lesser extent the Libyans) has been co-opted by the Sauds, Americans and Qataris, and you'd be a fool to think any of them will tolerate further pro-democracy uprisings on the peninsula. Yemen might get some reform but will likely be tempered by Saudi interference. Bahrain is too small a country to resist Saudi occupation and will likely not go anywhere any time soon. The Berbers might try something, but that's in North Africa and will end badly in the long run anyway. Perhaps when they can no longer can produce significant amounts of oil the area will lose its strategic importance and the Peninsular kings will be unable to keep power, but that won't be for another few decades.
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Jul 10, 2012 23:18
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Brown Moses posted:bomb stuff Took me a couple minutes but I finally found it. It appears that those are AO-1 SCH bomblets (image), perhaps dropped in an RBK 250-275 (image). It seems that they have something of a reputation of ending up as UXO. e: interestingly enough, it seems that bombs in the RBK family can only be dropped from fixed wing aircraft. Volkerball posted:I think the Sudan's are next. Khartoum is an extremely oppressive force in the area, and South Sudan's revolution to escape it has just seen Juba take its place. Something like 98% of South Sudan's assets are under Juba's control. However, the little spending power of the rural areas combined with the LRA's occupation of all the good farming land, plus the small scale civil wars all over, and it's tough to see how a strong movement could get on its feet. North Sudan may have a little more ground to stand on, and they're trying with the #SudanRevolts call to action, but time will tell. sum fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 00:55
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Section 31 posted:Replace Russia and China with USA, Assad with Netanyahu (or any other Israeli leader), and Syria with Palestine, and you should get some answers. That's a bad comparison, because at least betting on Assad benefits Russia and China strategically.
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Jul 13, 2012 08:38
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Golbez posted:You think China would go to war over Syria as a proxy/tryout for the South China Sea and maybe Taiwan? What? Sure they could defend a gas attack, it would be very easy in fact. Violating 'international law' is meaningless, especially when you have two superpowers defending you and you've been actively violating many other 'laws' in the past. Assad could massacre Sunnis with poison gas or he could massacre them with bullets and bombs, and neither would change Syria's strategic value to the SCO.
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Jul 13, 2012 23:28
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Except Bahrain is home to US Naval Forces Central Command and US Fifth Fleet and is essentially America's naval hub in the Middle East. Tartus was a backwater during the Cold War and has been essentially abandoned since. It's value as a strategic asset is nil. It's value as a point of pride for the Kremlin is perhaps significant, but likely not worth any real consequences. Your second point is the more important one. There's an election on and Obama has no interest in another Middle East excursion that will be unpopular and expensive. NATO is incapable of acting without US support so they won't act either. Syria's importance to the Russians isn't because of its naval base but because it forms the western flank of a crescent of Middle Eastern countries (the others being Iran and Iraq) which have close ties to Russia. Having them as allies is more important than just pride, their geographic positions allow them a very high level of control over land borne trade not just in the region but even between the continents. And don't believe Putin is bluffing when it comes to escalating his position in Syria, there has been a pattern of leaks from the military that intervention is imminent followed by official denials, which suggests that they still haven't made up their minds. Nenonen posted:Speculation on the use of chemical weapons is kind of premature. Chemical weapons are not some kind of cheat button that automatically wins the war for you - they certainly didn't solve much in WW1. They're hard to use, and if the insurgents have any source of gasmasks and hazmat suits (and there's little doubt that NATO will supply them if need be) they would do little good. Moving the stockpiles may also be a precaution to retain the WMD deterrent against Turkey/USA and Israel, to retain the WMD deterrent against the insurgents/prevent the insurgents from gaining a similar deterrent against the government, and to avoid giving USA a "reason" for intervention because the WMD stockpiles are falling into Al Qaida's hands. WMDs are about as close as there is to a 'win' button against an insurgency. Remember Mao: insurgents rely on civilians like fish rely on water. Even if they were somehow able to get hazmat suits (unlikely), they would be without a civilian base either because they have become refugees or because they are dead. Both situations would make an insurgent army extremely easy pickings for a military of any quality. sum fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jul 15, 2012 |
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Jul 15, 2012 03:57
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Rent-A-Cop posted:How would Russia even transport troops to Syria? Overland isn't happening. By air means overflying either Iraq or Turkey. Turkey certainly isn't going to agree, and I don't know if Iraqi sovereignty really extends to doing things against US interests in the region. By sea means either through the Bosporus or the Mediterranean and either of those options is going to antagonize the hell out of NATO. I just don't know if Syria is important enough to Russia for them to risk what certainly won't be a cheap foray into Middle Eastern insurgency warfare. Turkey can't close their straits to Russian warships without violating the Montreux Convention, but if they wanted to avoid the straits, they could go for a roundabout course starting from Murmansk. At any rate, antagonizing NATO would be a bonus, not a cost of intervention. Also, Iraq today cannot even be counted as an ally of the US, much less a puppet; discounting the larger-than-the-Vatican Embassy the US no longer even operates military bases in Iraq. Whether Russia intervenes at this point is still something of a toss-up. You have to consider which direction the civil war will go (either way, really) and, if things do go badly for Assad, the sort of political math Putin would think the potential costs of intervening vs. looking weak domestically is. Defying the West is practically guaranteed to make him like better.
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Jul 15, 2012 05:02
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Brown Moses posted:Anyway, to avoid a derail I've come across another unique and exciting video from Syria, this time the first time a tank has been recorded being used by the FSA in Syria. This is from a page back, but this is a bit of a distressing development. Willingness to use a tank in a guerrilla war seems to indicate that whoever is in charge of the FSA forces in Rastan is trying to form a jacquerie, which will certainly end badly. It makes you wonder what their long term plan is.
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Jul 17, 2012 01:25
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hepatizon posted:I looked up that word but I still don't understand what you're saying. It's already a civil war. I was using in the sense of a standing irregular army (as opposed to a traditional insurgency). Google says that that's a more obscure use of the term though, I probably should've been more specific about it.
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Jul 17, 2012 02:55
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truth masseuse posted:Yes, you should have. You need not impress us with your perspicacity. So yes, semantics, but very important semantics.
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Jul 17, 2012 04:37
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How does one even qualify a traditional v. non-traditional insurgency? I dunno. It's all semantics. It's a loving war, plain and simple.
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CoderCat posted:Give me a video, not a blog post. There are thousands upon thousands of protest videos. Surely you'll find one with this chant if it's popular. Why are you so incredulous to the notion that a members of a belligerent party to an extremely sectarian conflict may harbor sectarian views?
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Jul 19, 2012 01:13
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MothraAttack posted:edit: And this video, which is mostly a lovely night vision of the Damascus skyline taken early in this morning, is particularly interesting because around the :26 mark you see what appears to be a few bursts of AA fire into the night sky followed by a notable explosion on the ground around :40. While the AA could be video artifacts (although it seems pretty linear), it seems to suggest that someone in the city is putting up AA resistance against aircraft that might be conducting bombings. I suppose it could also be illumination flares, but the trajectory seems to place doubt on that. To me it looks it might be a ricochet. If they were truly trying to put fire on an aircraft they probably would've shot at it for an extended period.
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Jul 19, 2012 07:46
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J33uk posted:The responsibility to protect is pretty much dead
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Jul 19, 2012 22:02
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zero alpha posted:Is Kurd-talk OK in this thread? If so, is there any reason why Kurds are not morally entitled to a country of their own, in accordance with principals of self-determination? I'm pretty sure they've been there forever, and are mentioned in some ancient Greek documents from >2000 years ago. Whether they're morally entitled to a country is irrelevant (they certainly strongly believe in their own nation), the real question is whether they're capable of declaring and keeping their independence, which right now looks like a 'no' and will be that way for the foreseeable future. They're a weak, landlocked nation stuck between 4 regional powers who would all very much dislike giving even an acre to an independent Kurdish state, and I'm afraid there is no realistic scenario for Kurdish independence that would not end in anguish and defeat.
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Jul 22, 2012 00:13
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ChaosSamusX posted:If that was their exact wording, then does this mean that there are probably some cooler heads on top of the chain of command that might rein in any sectarian violence that happens after the regime collapses? The FSA has no chain of command much in the same way that the FSA is not a single entity. Not much is known about the exact composition and command of the various brigades, but it's safe to say that some are conservative Islamists, some are secular and more progressive, some are sectarian others aren't etc. Undoubtedly they will have different ideas of how to run the country and what to do about the Shiites, Christians and Alawis (if anything) if and when the current government falls, and I'd say at this stage it's not safe to speculate about through what means they will push their agendas and how successful they will be.
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Jul 22, 2012 05:53
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Xandu posted:Once the rebels started organizing, they started having obligations under international law to avoid civilian causalties, even if that would mean fleeing.
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Jul 24, 2012 00:20
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Here's an interesting roundtable discussion over Syria that I think brought up some interesting points: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3189/the-call-for-july-22-2012-russian-ambitions-in Some of the things mentioned:
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Jul 24, 2012 21:15
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Xandu posted:
Of course that is a big 'if' for Assad as it would mean losing control over large swaths of territory and most of the population while still having to maintain a military that poses a credible threat, the rebels would probably have to seize and hold Damascus and Aleppo for Assad to become that desperate. Valley Troll posted:As far as I'm aware, the Gatestone Institute is a crazy right wing "media" outlet a la MEMRI that usually focuses on churning out articles about how muslim extremists are planning to personally assassinate every christian in the world.  This is extremely embarrassing. I'd made a cursory review of the front page and saw a lot of things contributed by writers I at least view as credible discussing sane topics. For the record I was linked there from one of Escobar's articles.
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Jul 24, 2012 21:48
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McDowell posted:Don't apologize, no one knows what is going on, and in this subject any information is useful, it's just good to acknowledge bias and how it affects speculation (which is a good 50% of the media). I decided to do some research on the actual contributors to that article, and I was able to find this: The contributors for that particular article were Escobar and Goldman ('Spengler'), both columnists for the Asia Times with a liberal/left bent, Jim Davis who as far as I can tell is a guy who wrote fairly anodyne articles about Russia in 2005 and once donated $250 to the RNC, Tony Badran who is a fellow at a pro-Israel pro-West 'non-partisan' think tank with connections to such savory figures as Joe Lieberman, Bill Kristol and Newt Gingrich, and finaly David Samuels, Generic American Liberal. So, was this an actual roundtable, Zionist scaremongering (  ) or a mix? Can't say, really.
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Jul 24, 2012 22:22
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Brown Moses posted:Here's a new aircraft video Doesn't look armed just from the profile view, but it's impossible to say considering the quality and shakiness of the video. It's possible that they're using the L-39 as a cheap recce vehicle to spot FSA vehicles and emplacements.
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Jul 25, 2012 22:38
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McDowell posted:Persecuted minorities should get their own country if they are ready to fight for it - I can think of a good mideast example for US Foreign Policy. They were ready to fight for their own state 90 years ago (coincidentally during the same period where Wilson was championing the 'rights' of small nations) and they were crushed by the Turks, and they will be crushed by the Turks again whether they tried it tomorrow or in 90 years or in 900 years.
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Jul 27, 2012 08:04
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Corny posted:And popular opinion was that the nascent state of Israel would be destroyed or fought into a stalemate by the Holy War army and the Arab Liberation Army, that Mubarak would transfer power to his son, Gadhafi would rule in Libya for the rest of time. Never say "never" in the Middle-East because poo poo could very easily change quite dramatically, especially when no one thinks that it will ever happen. Most of the cases you mentioned have to do with political rule over an entire, largely ethnically homogenous nation. There's a few extremely simple reasons why the Kurds will never, ever have independence: they're small, they're weak, they're poor, they're landlocked, they're extremely divided (important) and Kurdish independence means that Turkey no longer has a border with Iraq and Iran. Losing Kurdistan is not an option for Turkey if it wants to become a regional power, which is why it won't budge an inch on Kurdish independence. Conceivably they might end up creating a 'semi-autonomous' polity, but by it's nature it would have to be a sham managed by a family of strongmen who ultimately answer to Ankara.
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Jul 27, 2012 21:41
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-Troika- posted:Isn't the Kurdish peshmerga force better trained and equipped than the Iraqis right now? I know they took over a very large portion of the previous government's armored vehicles. Wikipedia claims that Iraq only had 100 PT-76s in 1990 and that they were 'destroyed or scrapped'. It's certainly possible that some Kurdish faction got there hands on a couple dozen, but maintaining an armor corps implies a fairly sophisticated logistical system, which, even if they have one, is certainly no match for Iraq's professional armor divisions, which include some 300 Abrams tanks. I doubt the Kurds will ever put up a serious fight for independence at any rate, as that would mean that they would have to stand unified behind a single leader, which they have never, ever been able to do. Especially not considering that the current president of Iraq, Talabani, controls the PUK and by extension half of Kurdistan.
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Jul 29, 2012 07:31
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Do the sanctions effect food imports? Couldn't they just import food if need be? I would imagine local shortages would be because of a disruption in the transport system, not an actual lack of food.
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Jul 30, 2012 01:22
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Nenonen posted:Unless... unless it's all a big deception, like the Patton's ghost army and the hints that the invasion would target Calais rather than Normandy Those types of deceptions don't end in a soundproofed basement with a couple of angry men from the interior ministry with hacksaws and ball-peen hammers. e: actual content from the Angry Arab Blog: "Here, the New York Times tell you that Al-Qa`idah in Syria is more moderate, unlike Al-Qa`idah in Iraq posted:It is getting comical in this piece by Neil MacFarquhar: "Abu al-Khatab, in his late 20s, said he was a former fighter for Al Qaeda in Iraq before he joined Ahrar al-Sham. “I agree with Al Qaeda on certain things and disagree on others,” he said. “Suicide bombings should only be against the security forces, not civilians, for example.”" So let me get this straight: Al-Qa`idah is good if it fights against enemies of the US, and it is bad if it fights against US and its clients in the region? Is that the real criterion here? With Neil MacFarquhar, I expect to read this one day: Abu Al-Khattab, although active in Al-Qa`idah, is a secular feminist who enjoys his single-malt whiskey. (Comrade Joseph once explained to me what single-malt whiskey is but I don't remember). sum fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 21:38
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Killer robot posted:Congratulations on the article, Brown Moses, and lots of good information. Main battle tanks (which the Syrian Army's stock is almost entirely comprised of) were developed primarily as a sort of modern-aged cavalry, designed to poke holes in front lines and then use their mobility to gently caress up the enemy's rear and force them either into an encirclement or into giving large amounts of ground. The primary difference between the different eras of tanks essentially has to do with their capability to do this, which of course goes down to things like the optics, engine, gun caliber, etc. When they're employed against what are essentially militias any sort of tank can be murderously lethal and those details don't really matter as much. Sure you could make the argument that reactive armor, better optics etc. etc. give certain models advantages, but, really there isn't a significant difference. In other news, looking at that BBC special report + other articles around the internet it's looking like the FSA in Aleppo is increasingly likely to do something Really Dumb. The news about the siege and food shortages combined with the fact that it appears all the civilians are fleeing while the men are staying to fight is eerily reminiscent of the lead up to the Hama massacre. I honestly hope that the FSA doesn't try to do some last-stand pitched battle nonsense.
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Jul 31, 2012 04:20
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AllanGordon posted:I was under the impression that there has been significantly more defections in Syria among the armed forces than there were in Libya. There is also the fact that for the most part the Libyan army was poorly trained with a few elite units dedicated to keeping the regime in power while in Syria they have a much more traditional military structure. This is too optimistic I think. So far the only major defections have been Tlass and al-Fares, and considering the fact that they both are Sunni and immediately went to cozy up with the Sauds and Qataris it's not a long bet that they did so for less than scrupulous reasons. At any rate if the military was at all averse to shooting civilians they would've made that clear 17 months ago. A large part of the Syrian opposition are conservative and Islamist (if you think that all the Al-Qaeda FSA fighters are foreigners you're kidding yourself) which are antithetical to the type of secular, 'stable' (repressive) oligarchies that Middle Eastern militaries rely on. The old elite won't defect for the simple reason that defection would put them out of power and would support the faction that would incarcerate or execute them if they could.
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Jul 31, 2012 07:17
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