a tactical nuke burst would just look like a big FAE .. hmm why don't the Russians test a tactical neutron bomb .. interesting thought !habal wrote:those cruise missiles should not be wasted with conventional warheads, they should be armed on the sly with tactical nukes and flung towards Raqqa. What is there in Raqqa worth preserving ?
.. less collateral damage and leave "ancient ruins" intactSirjihnair wrote:...we will probably go easier on these dense packed boast. We are going to see largish lightly armed ships, that can stay out at sea for long, with load outs of more refined (costly) longer range missiles.
If this happened and the Iranians get a look at the tech. - a couple of 3 years from now suddenly the Iranians will have the capability to defend their warships off the coast of Aden by launching missiles from Isfahan! Just think about what else would be under threat then!Singha wrote:
thawks fell on TSP also and were promptly sold to china. being iran, the russians can ask for the wrecks be returned. the iranians might take a look for their own uses before returning.
US: The World's Silliest Empire
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/u ... re/ri10350
Dmitry Orlov
(Club Orlov)
1 hour ago | 21 11
I couldn't help but notice that over the past few weeks the Empire has become extremely silly—so silly that I believe it deserves the title of the World's Silliest Empire. One could claim that it has been silly before, but recent developments seem to signal a quantum leap in its silliness level.
The first bit of extreme silliness surfaced when Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the United States Central Command, told a Senate panel that only a very small number of Syrian fighters trained by the United States remained in the fight—perhaps as few as five.
The tab for training and equipping them was $500 million. That's $100 million per fighter, but that's OK, because it's all good as long as the military contractors are getting paid. Things got even sillier when it later turned out that even these few fighters got car-jacked by ISIS/al Qaeda in Syria (whatever they are currently calling themselves) and got their vehicles and weapons taken away from them.
General Austin's previous role as as Lt. General Casey in Tim Burton's film Mars Attacks! It was already a very silly role, but his current role is a definite career advancement, both in terms of rank and in terms of silliness level.
The next silly moment arrived at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, where Obama, who went on for 30 minutes instead of the allotted 15 (does Mr. Silly President know how to read a clock?) managed to use up all of this time and say absolutely nothing that made any sense to anyone.
But it was Putin's speech that laid out the Empire's silliness for all to see when he scolded the US for making a bloody mess of the Middle East with its ham-handed interventions. The oft-repeated quote is “Do you understand what you have done?” but that's not quite right.
The Russian «Вы хоть понимаете теперь, чего вы натворили?» can be more accurately translated as “How can you even now fail to understand what a mess you have made?”
Words matter: this is not how one talks to a superpower before an assembly of the world's leaders; this is how one scolds a stupid and wayward child. In the eyes of the whole world, this made the Empire look rather silly.
What happened next is that Russia announced the start of its bombing campaign against all manner of terrorists in Syria (and perhaps Iraq too; the Iraqi request is in Putin's in-box).
What's notable about this bombing campaign is that it is entirely legal. The legitimate, elected government of Syria asked Russia for help; the campaign was approved by the Russian legislature.
On the other hand, the bombing campaign that the US has been conducting in Syria is entirely illegal. There are exactly two ways to legally bomb the territory of another country: 1. an invitation from that country's government and 2. a UN Security Council resolution. The US has not obtained either of them.
Why is this important? Because the UN, with its Security Council, was instituted to prevent war, by making it difficult for nations to engage each other militarily without all sorts of international economic and political repercussions. After World War II it was thought that wars are rather nasty and that something should be done to prevent them.
But the US feels that this is rather unnecessary. When a Russian correspondent (Gayane Chichakyan from RT) asked the White House press secretary under what legal authority the US was bombing Syria, he at first pretended to not understand the question, then babbled incoherently, looking rather silly.
You see, the US likes to fight wars (or rather, its military contractors like to fight wars, because that's how they make money, and they happen to own a big piece of the US government). But the US can't win any wars, and that makes its entire war effort rather silly (in a murderous sort of way).
In spite of American recalcitrance, the UN does in fact prevent wars. Recently it prevented the US from mounting a “limited strike against the Assad regime in response to the brazen use of chemical weapons” (or so said Obama during his UN speech). This was helped by a deft bit of Russian diplomacy, in the course of which Syria voluntarily gave up its chemical weapons stockpiles. Undeterred by diplomacy, the US squeezed off a couple of cruise missiles in the general direction of Syria, but the Russians promptly shot them out of the sky, triggering a major rethink at the Pentagon and, of course, making the US look rather silly.
But once you make a fool of yourself, why stop? Indeed, Obama shows no intention of stopping. Just about the entire audience at the UN General Assembly knew that the Syrian government's chemical attack on its own people never happened. The chemicals were provided by the Saudis and were unwittingly used by the Syrian rebels on themselves. Lying, when everybody knows that you are lying, and knows that you know that you are lying: what could possibly be sillier?
Ok, how about continuously prattling on about “freedom and democracy”—in the Middle East, after throwing the whole region into chaos through their brain-dead interventions? The only voice of reason in the US seems to be that of Donald Trump, who recently declared that the Middle East was more stable under Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khaddafi and Bashar al Assad. Indeed it was. The fact that the only non-silly politician left in the US is Trump—that bloviating moneybag—sets a rather high bar for silliness for the country as a whole.
Prattling on about “freedom and democracy” in the Middle East is also silly because the entire region is tribal—has been tribal for a few thousand years, and will be tribal for a few thousand more. In each locale, some tribe is on top. If the idea is to carve it up into sovereign territorial units (none of which qualifies as a nation, because each one ends up being multinational) then each territorial unit ends up being ruled by some tribe while others grumble. Blunder in and exploit their grumbling to bring about “regime change”—and the whole place invariably burns down.
A case in point is Israel: it's got the top dog tribe—the Jews, and they can shoot or bomb anybody else with impunity. It is considered “democratic” because the Jews get to vote, which is very nice for the Jews. The Alawites in Syria get to vote too—and vote for Bashar al Assad—so why isn't that good enough? Because of American hypocrisy and double standards.
It's like that right down the line. Saudi Arabia is owned by one tribe—the House of Saud, and everybody else is disenfranchised. Iraq used to be run by the Sunnis from Saddam Hussein's tribe, but the Americans dislodged them, and now what remains of it is ruled by the Shia from the south of the country while the Sunnis ran off and joined ISIS. This can all seem like super-simple stuff, but not for the Americans, because it runs counter to their ideology, which dictates that the world must be remade in America's image. And so they keep trying to do this (or keep pretending to be trying, because results don't matter as long as their military contractors get paid) and don't seem to care one bit that this is making them look very silly.
And so the typical pattern has been this: the US bombs a country to smithereens, mounts a ground invasion, sets up a puppet regime and, promptly or not so promptly, pulls out. The puppet regime falls apart, and then you have either ungovernable chaos or some new, especially nasty form of dictatorship, or a little of each: a failed state, like Libya, and Yemen, and much of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It doesn't much matter that this is the result (as long as the military contractors are getting paid) because America's motto seems to be “Look Silly and Carry On.” Wreck a country—and it's on to the next bombing campaign.
But this is where it all gets meta-silly: in Syria they can't even achieve that. The Americans have been bombing ISIS for a year now; meanwhile, ISIS has gotten stronger and occupied more territory. But they haven't gotten around to overthrowing Assad; instead, the ISIS boys have been busy prancing around the desert in black head rags and white basketball shoes taking selfies, blowing up archaeological sites, enslaving women and beheading anyone they don't like.
But now it appears that the Russians have achieved in five days of bombing what the Americans couldn't in a year and the ISIS boys are running away to Jordan; others want to go to Germany and ask for asylum. This has made the Americans upset, because, you see, the Russians were bombing “their” terrorists—the ones the Americans recruited, armed and trained… and then bombed? I know, silly—but true. The Russians will have none of that, because their approach is, if it looks like a terrorist and quacks like a terrorist, then it is a terrorist, so let's bomb it.
But it is understandable that this approach is unpopular with the Americans: here they were carefully pumping the place full of weapons and equipment, and bombing carefully around the edges so as not to blow up any of it, and the Russians just blunder in and blow it all up! The Saudis are absolutely livid, because it was they who paid for much of it. Plus the terrorists are their own Wahhabi-Takfiri brethren—the ones who like to declare various other Muslims that they don't happen to like to be infidels, in direct violation of their own Sharia law. Does that remind you of anyone? Anyone silly?
But it doesn't appear that the US can do anything to stop the Russians, or the Chinese who also want to get a piece of ISIS to stuff and mount, or the Iranians and the Hezbollah fighters who are ready to march in and mop up what remains of ISIS once the bombing missions destroy all the war materiel it has amassed. And so it's time for Americans to start an information war by accusing the Russians of causing civilian casualties.
Of course, being Americans, they have to prosecute this information war in the silliest way possible. First, you trot out your claims of civilian casualties before the Russians fly a single sortie. Oops! Then you stuff the social media with fake pictures of wounded children produced beforehand by performers in white helmets paid for by George Soros. And then, when asked for evidence, you refuse to provide any.
So far so good, but let's get even sillier. Immediately after screaming loudly about Russians causing civilian casualties, the Americans blow up a hospital in Afghanistan that was run by Medecins sans Frontières, in spite of being informed of its location both before and during the bombing. “Don't kill civilians… like this!” Could it get any sillier than that? Of course it can: the US can start blatantly, nakedly lying about the event: “There were Taleban fighters hiding in that hospital!”—no, there weren't; “The Afghans told us to bomb that hospital!”—no, they didn't. Bombing that hospital was an actual war crime—so says the UN. Are are the Russians now going to listen to criticism from war criminals? Don't be silly!
It's really hard to tell, but anything seems possible now. For example, the US no longer seems to have a foreign policy: the White House says one thing, the State Department another, the Pentagon a third, Samantha Power at the UN pursues a foreign policy of her own using Twitter, and Senator John McCain wants to arm Syrian rebels to shoot down Russian planes. (All five of them? John, don't be silly!) In response to all this confusion, America's political puppets in the European Union are starting to twitch uncontrollably and go off-script, because the nerve center in Washington is no longer sending them clear signals.
How is this all going to end? Well, since we are all just being silly, let me make a humble suggestion: the US should bomb everything inside the Beltway in Washington, plus a few counties in Virginia. That should significantly degrade the country's capability for being extremely silly. And if that doesn't work—so what? After all, it is clear that results don't matter. As long as the military contractors are getting paid, it's all good.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/russia/20151009/ ... z3o3BbSLbd
No matter how unpleasant and unexpected it is for our colleagues in the Pentagon and Langley, our strikes yesterday with precision-guided weapons at ISIL infrastructure in Syria hit their targets," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
"Unlike CNN, we don't report quoting anonymous sources, but we show launches of our missiles and the targets they hit in real-time mode," Konashenkov noted, adding that Russian drones are operating in Syria around the clock monitoring operations.
Iran's semi-official FARS news agency additionally said that the Iranian Defense Ministry had rejected reports alleging that four of the 26 cruise missiles fired from Russia's Caspian fleet at ISIL targets in Syria struck targets in Iran. FARS added that the Iranian Defense Ministry said the reports are part of the West's "psychological warfare."
Why not have a dedicated dhaga for funny journalism, just to have some good laugh reading such crap.Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d3a_1444 ... JMcFDV5.99BBC Censors Comments On Syria Crisis
image: http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/attention.gif
Part of channel(s): Syria (current event)
An Article Published on the 6th of October 2015 by the BBC, titled 'Syria conflict: Russia violations of Turkish airspace 'no accident', included a rare free to comment section for BBC members to comment and express their views.
The comment thread was then flooded with more than 1000 comments, mostly contradicting the BBC narrative and showing support to Russia's air campaign in Syria. The following day, the majority of top rated comments suddenly became flagged for 'breaking the house rules'.
Listen to this Gerald celente videoclip on the situ. Good stuff.Caspian Flotilla ships have launched 26 cruise missiles at Islamic State facilities at Islamic State positions in Syria. ©
A CNN report, claiming that several Russian cruise missiles targeting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions in Syria actually landed in Iran, has been refuted by the Russian Defense Ministry, while the US State Department say they can’t confirm.
Russian anti-terror op in Syria
The American broadcaster cited two unnamed US officials, who said that four Russian missiles had crashed somewhere in Iran after being launched from vessels in the Caspian Sea. The report suggested that “some buildings were damaged and civilians may have been hurt.”
This triggered a quick reaction from the Russian Defense Ministry, with spokesman Igor Konashenkov saying that all the missiles had hit their targets on Wednesday. “Unlike CNN, we don’t distribute information citing anonymous sources, but show the very missile launches and the way they hit their targets almost in real time,” Konashenkov said. The spokesman pointed out that the strike targets are being photographed before and after being hit, while Russian drones are monitoring the situation from Syrian skies 24/7.
READ MORE: 4 Russian warships launch 26 missiles against ISIS from Caspian Sea
The high precision strikes might have been “unpleasant and surprising for our colleagues in the Pentagon,” but the fact is that “the missiles launched from the ships hit their targets,” he said.
“Otherwise one would have to acknowledge that IS facilities – located at a considerable distance from each other – exploded all by themselves,” Konashenkov said.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that he couldn’t confirm CNN’s report, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, a source in Iran’s Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti that Tehran has “no information of Russian missiles crashing on Iranian territory.”
On Wednesday, four Russian naval warships in the Caspian Sea fired a total of 26 missiles at positions of Islamic State in Syria, hitting all the targets, according to Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
Moscow slams Carter’s warning about cost of Syria strikes
Konashenkov also lashed out at a fresh statement from Pentagon head Ashton Carter, who predicted Russian losses in its Syrian operation.
“In their assessments of the US military’s actions in various operations conducted by them all over the world, the Russian Defense Ministry has never stooped to publicly speaking of expectations of the deaths of American soldiers” Konashenkov stressed.
READ MORE: Combat report: Russian jets strike 27 terrorist facilities in Syria overnight
According to the spokesman, Carters’ words demonstrate the degree of cynicism among “some of the representatives” of the current US government.
Moscow’s air operation in Syria “will have consequences primarily for Russia itself,” Carter said at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“I expect that in the next few days the Russians will begin to lose in Syria,” the US Defense Secretary added, also mentioning the possibility of retaliatory attacks by extremists in Russia.
Russia launched its anti-terror air campaign in Syria at the request of the Syrian government on September 30.The Russian military has destroyed over a hundred terrorist targets, including command posts, ammunition depots, training camps and armored vehicles, since the start of the operation.
Just in the interest of a Sanity Break: Comrade Konashenkov is 450% correct."Unlike CNN, we don't report quoting anonymous sources, but we show launches of our missiles and the targets they hit in real-time mode," Konashenkov noted, adding that Russian drones are operating in Syria around the clock monitoring operations.
. With a detailed exposition of every button being pushed, on a bright day with a blue sky and rolling waves outside. A general for Iran's Revolutionary Guards has been killed by ISIS in Syria, the guards said in a Friday statement. General Hossein Hamedani was reportedly advising President Bashar Assad's army on its fight against the militant group.
Hamedani's death was confirmed in a statement carried by Iranian media.
The guards said the general was killed by Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) “during an advisory mission” in the northern region of Aleppo.
Hamedani was reportedly overseeing the Quds Force, a special forces unit fighting rebels in Syria that has been declared a terrorist organization by the US.
The general, a veteran of the 1980-89 Iran-Iraq war, was made deputy chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards in 2005. He was known for leading a crackdown on protesters during 2009 demonstrations against the Iranian presidential results. He was previously the subject of international sanctions from several nations.
Iran is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, though it denies having any military forces in Syria. However, sources told Reuters last week that hundreds of troops have arrived since late September to take part in a major ground offensive planned in the country's west and northwest.
, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ga.) calling the program a “total failure.” “We have no reports of any Russian missiles crashing in Iran,” Gen. Musa Kamali told Russian news agency Sputnik. “All those media reports alleging that Russian missiles aiming at Syria hit Iran are blatant lies.”
“If the people making those claims had any proof, they would have certainly presented it,” he said. “The US made similar allegations in the past as part of their psychological warfare against whoever opposes their policies in the region.”
Meanwhile Newsweek: The Kremlin's military action in Syria might save Assad. Less clear is whether it can save Russia.And from the Brisbane Times of Oz.Russian public opinion shifting in favour of Syria strikes
4 hours ago
A new poll shows that more than 70% of Russians support President Putin's military intervention in Syria.
That's a major increase since the last poll, taken before airstrikes began.
The shift in opinion is largely down to a powerful information campaign on state-controlled media, especially television, which is the prime source of information for the vast majority of Russians.
Ouch!U.S. suspending program to arm Syrian rebels
By Barbara Starr, Tal Kopan and Jim Acosta, CNN
And now the wriggling starts:suspend its faltering Syrian rebel training program
looking for ways to "improve" the program
looking at different ways to achieve the same strategic objectives, which is the right one, which is to enable capable motivated forces on the ground to retake territory from ISIL and reclaim Syrian territory from extremismwas not satisfied with the early efforts in that regard,
NATO? Turkey? UK? France? Mozambique maybe? 
Spin accelerating.devised a number of different approaches to that going forward," Carter said. He added that the president would be talking about it on Friday.
But the U.S. backing for the rebels is not ending. The U.S. will provide ammunition to Syria Arab Coalition, some 5,000 moderate rebels in the north, a defense official said Friday. Commanders in the U.S. special operations community had been pressing for that decision for weeks, defense officials told CNN, after seeing them achieve success on the battlefield. Small numbers of the New Syrian Army also will continue to be supported as well.
PS:The entire globe is laughing at the US's insistence that there are "moderate Syrian rebels",now we have a 5000 figureWhile U.S. gives Russia the cold shoulder in Syria, Kremlin's ties with Israel grow warm.
Anshel Pfeffer |
Oct 09, 2015
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that it was refusing to hold “de-confliction” talks with the Russian Defense Ministry to coordinate the two nations’ air-operations over Syria and would make do with just “technical details.” At the same time, de-confliction talks, of the kind the Americans rejected, between the Israel Defense Forces and their Russian counterparts, led by the deputy chiefs of staff of both militaries, were already wrapping up in Tel Aviv’s HaKirya headquarters.
Israel’s willingness to hold these talks reflects of course the recognition that after many years of operating nearly freely in Syrian airspace, things have changed with the arrival of a modern and well-equipped air force. But it also reflects the Russians’ desire not to have any confrontation with Israel in the region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right
The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested, and received, a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, immediately when the Russian deployment to Syria began, should not come as a surprise. Despite Israel’s strategic ties with the United States, both sides have maintained a discreet and intimate security relationship which is much closer than meets the eye. Israel received from Putin in 2008 advance warning of Russia’s plans to attack Georgia, in a personal meeting he had with former president Shimon Peres at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. This enabled Israel to call back in time private defense contractors and advisers who were working at the time with the Georgian army.
Israel has also in recent years sold surveillance drones to the Russians, despite Russia at the same time supplying some of Israel’s enemies with arms.
In the past, Israeli officials used to explain the desire to stay on Putin’s good side, despite his growing animosity towards the West and the erosion of civil rights in Russia, as part of its concern for the safety of hundreds of thousands of Jews still living in Russia. But there doesn’t seem to be any true basis for such fears, at least not under Putin. He is interested in the ties just as much as Israel.
To this day there are various explanations as to how Putin actually feels about Jews. His many supporters among the Jewish community in Russia insist that he is philosemitic, due to the friendships he had with Jewish classmates back in his childhood in St. Petersburg and the influence of Jewish teachers who perceived his potential. Putin’s critics ask why then are the Kremlin-funded propaganda channels filled with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, masquerading as respectable commentators? But even those critics agree that Putin has a high regard for Jews and regrets the emigration of many thousands of Jewish scientists and researchers following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Russian warship attacks Syria.
A Russian warship fires cruise missile at Syria on October 7. Russia, which released the footage, claimed it was targeting Islamic State positions. Credit: AF
Some think that Putin actually sees the Jews as being too powerful but this regard also extends to his assessment of the Jewish state and particularly Israel’s military capabilities. Throughout his rule, he has made sure each year to meet with Israeli leaders, putting store by face-to-face engagement over diplomatic channels.
In the meetings with prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Netanyahu, Putin promised Russia would not surprise Israel by supplying the Iranians with the advanced S-300 air-defense system, which would make an Israeli air strike more difficult, a promise that despite contradictory statements, he has so far kept. In a meeting with Olmert, a few months after the end of the Second Lebanon War, Israeli officers presented Putin with shrapnel from advanced Russian anti-tank missiles which had been used by Hezbollah. Not everyone in Israel’s defense establishment believes the Russian promise that the missiles were supplied to Hezbollah by the Syrian Army without the Russian’s knowledge.
What is without doubt is that in the decade before the Syrian civil war, there was a significant reduction in Syrian arms purchases from Russia (most deals during this period were for the refurbishment of old Soviet-era aircraft of the Syrian Air Force), and a shift to acquiring weapons from Iran and North Korea. The Russians were not aware of Syria building a secret nuclear reactor, which was destroyed from the air in 2007, according to foreign sources by Israel. The Russians returned in force to Syria only after the civil war broke out.
Both sides mainly kept silent over the other's actions. When the Russians upgraded Syria’s coastal cruise missiles in Tartous Port, and when the listening-base operated by GRU (Russian military intelligence) on the Syrian side of the Golan, monitoring Israeli military communications, Israel kept mum. And when Russian-supplied missiles and other advanced systems were bombed in Syria, according to foreign sources by the Israeli Air Force, only limp statements of concern were heard from Moscow.
Netanyahu knew what Putin needed to hear from him in their meeting last month – a promise that Israel isn’t seeking to actively topple Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. While the Obama administration and its NATO allies are still struggling to grasp what Putin is trying to achieve in Syria, it seems that the Israeli and Russian leaders understand each other’s interests pretty well. It may not be a formal military alliance but in the current situation in the Middle East, it’s quite a lot.
given,which reminds me of the "silent opposition" in John le Carre's famous spy novel,"The Tailor of Panama",a bogus phantom force used by a rogue MI 6 agent and unscrupulous diplomats and spooks to siphon off huge amounts of moolah. Aah,the poor US taxpayers . They have to be duped out of billions each year in these "wars against terrorism",etc.etc.,with the moolah going into the pockets of the arms manufacturers,the Oakley visored "contractors" and the puppet masters of the US establishment who need these billions to fund their lavish lifestyles and greed.To add more fuel to the ME/Levant fire;U.S. Naval Commander in Europe: NATO Needs to Adapt to Russia’s New Way of Hybrid Warfare
By: Megan Eckstein
October 6, 2015 3:17 PM
Russia has found ways to slow NATO military responses while simultaneously quickening its own ability to mobilize, the commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa said, and NATO needs to find ways to adapt.
Adm. Mark Ferguson, who also commands the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, said at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday that Russia has not only expanded its presence – in the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and now in the Mediterranean Sea – but has deployed more sophisticated weaponry and has introduced an element of hybrid warfare that keeps NATO unsure of how to respond.
“The language coming from the Russian military reflects the mindset and actions characteristic of direct challenge and confrontation with NATO. What makes this approach troubling is hybrid warfare coupled with the ever-present threat of the full application of robust conventional and nuclear forces,” Ferguson said.
“Russia has also introduced new capabilities, such as newer and more stealthy nuclear-powered attack and ballistic missile defense submarines. They are also expanding the reach of their conventional submarines with advanced cruise missiles. Just last month the first Caliber [cruise missile]-equipped Kilo-class submarine transited from the North Sea to the Black Sea, the first of six, bringing within its range the eastern half of Europe.”
What makes the military buildup tricky for NATO is that Russia has also leveraged space and cyber and waded into information and hybrid warfare that is “designed to cripple the decision-making cycle of the alliance. Their capabilities have focused on the creation of ambiguity.”
“On land, Russia exploits ethnic and religious divisions, makes use of an aggressive information campaign, and extensively uses misinformation and deception to delegitimize the forces under attack while confusing the attribution of their actions,” Ferguson said, adding that the Russian Navy has also attempted to disrupt decision-cycles at sea.
At the same time, “to execute swiftly, they are also centralizing their national and military decision-making. We are seeing more frequent snap exercises focused on rapid mobilization and movement directed by central headquarters, to include their naval forces, where we have seen large numbers of ships get underway with little or no notice.”
The end result, he said, is that conditions change faster than NATO’s chain of command can keep up with, with alliance leaders hesitant to stake out a course of action in the midst of so much uncertainty.
During a question and answer session, Ferguson said that NATO has taken some steps to quicken its response time, such as creating a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and forward stationing some equipment. However, he said the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe and the NATO North Atlantic Council would need to find ways to more rapidly give authorities and permission to respond to crises. Ferguson said Russia has proven several times how quickly it can surprise NATO allies with action, and NATO needs to be more responsive and be able to have the mechanisms to make the decisions quicker” – which in part will require greater situational awareness on the ground.
Additionally, “We may have to think differently about how we set up our command structures in response to speed and surprise,” he said later at the event.
Ferguson said in his presentation that NATO needed to further adapt in several ways. First, alliance members should invest in training at the high end of the warfare scale. Naval forces should be on-call for real-world events, to reduce mobilization time, and those forces need to invest in new technologies to keep up with Russian investment.
He noted that budgets are tight across Europe, but that to upgrade the allies’ militaries with equipment resistant to space and cyber warfare, “in this era of fiscal limits, allies should pool resources and form consortiums to purchase or lease the capabilities the U.S. may possess.”
Ferguson also noted that European forces are struggling to maintain current force levels, let alone grow them. The size of allied navies needs to at least stay steady, and those navies must participate in more live-fire exercises such as the upcoming Trident Juncture and the annual Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise that took place in June.
Ferguson also said in response to a question that he has held meetings with Russian Navy officials to discuss incidents between the United States and Russia, which he described as professional. He said that ship-to-ship interactions between U.S. and Russian forces have also remained professional and responsible but that “we have seen more aggressive behavior from the air forces and aircraft overflights.”
Philip, this somewhat validates one theory of mine that there are 2 distinct lobbies in USA. One is the USA rah-rah crowd of Trump/Palin/Bush/Clinton and then there is the Euro old-money lobby of Warburg/Kuhn Loeb/Sachs/Israel Moses Seif/Lazard. The former control military/CIA and the latter hold all the purse strings via stock markets, banks. US MNC corporations etc. It seems there is a friction between two and latter are pinning on Putin to beat down the USA rah rah crowd. They are moving their pieces on the chessboard via Russia.Philip wrote:This may explain Putin's confidence in his Syrian gambit,his close ties with Israel.
Inside A Mid-East Coup: A Closer Look At The Russia-Iran Power Play
10/03/2015
Iran Iraq Wall Street Journal
Earlier today, we ventured to characterize the breakdown of Washington’s strategy in Syria as the worst US foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.
To be sure, that’s a bold claim, but it’s supported by the sheer number of missteps, bad outcomes, and outright absurdities that have developed in the Mid-East as a result of the effort to oust Bashar al-Assad.
At the most basic level, the support provided by Washington, Riyadh, and Doha for the various Sunni extremist groups battling for control of Syria has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and millions are displaced. As tragic as the situation already is, the conditions are ripe for it to get even worse if the move by Brussels to force recalcitrant EU countries into accepting a migrant quota system they are opposed to ends up triggering a dangerous bout of xenophobia in the Balkans.
Washington’s move to train and arm the Syrian opposition has of course also led directly to the creation of a group of black flag-waving jihadists that have taken the term “extremists” to a whole new level on the way to producing a series of slickly-produced videos depicting the murder of Westerners. This same group is now stomping around between Syria and Iraq wreaking havoc on civilians and committing acts so heinous that even al-Qaeda has condemned them.
Of course the outright chaos the West has managed to create in Syria has now come full circle, providing Iran and Russia with a unique opportunity to tip the scales and seize power in the Mid-East.
What's important to understand here, is that this isn’t confined to Syria.
That is, Iran isn't content to preserve its supply line with Hezbollah and Russia isn't content to play spoiler to the US by propping up Assad. There's something far more meaningful going on here and it can be readily observed in Iraq.
For years, Iran exercised its influence in Iraq via various Shiite militias controlled by Quds commander Qasem Soleimani. Now, it looks as though the deal struck between Tehran and Moscow in July included a power play designed to gradually muscle the US out of the way in Baghdad. The first concrete evidence of this came late last month when Iraq announced an intelligence sharing agreement with Russia and Syria but the story goes far deeper than that. Consider the following from The Washington Institute:
On September 21, the Wall Street Journal reported that forces under the command of Iran, Russia, and Bashar al-Assad were coordinating efforts to secure the Syrian regime. As Moscow sends advanced aircraft, armored vehicles, and more, Iran's Iraqi Shiite proxies have simultaneously stepped up their recruitment and deployment for the Syria war. Since July, their Syria-focused online campaigns have jumped significantly (see chart), morphing from infrequent mentions in late 2014/early 2015 to a full-fledged recruitment program involving a number of newer Iranian-backed groups. These Shiite fighters are now spread across Syria, primarily in the western part of the country, launching operations from the suburbs of Damascus to Idlib.
Following the June 2014 seizure of Mosul and much of northern Iraq by the so-called Islamic State/ISIS, a group called Kataib al-Imam Ali (KIA) announced its creation. Formed by Iranian-controlled splinter elements from Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, KIA is probably best known for its fierce battlefield reputation and particularly gory videos featuring severed heads and men being cooked above open flames.
When compared to other organizations, KIA's Syria-focused recruitment and propaganda campaign has been the largest. Using messages issued via its offices, billboards, and social media, the group has actively recruited new members, especially around Najaf, Iraq. These efforts began with online imagery connecting its fighters with Sayyeda Zainab, an important Shiite shrine near Damascus. Other posts have announced that Jaafar al-Bindawi, the militia's former head of training and logistics, would be leading the deployment in Syria, while Ali Nizam would serve as the new logistical director for Syrian affairs.
While this effort marks the group's first publicized deployments to Syria, KIA is no newcomer to the war. Prior to its formal creation, and with Iranian assistance, elements of the militia were very active in Syria beginning in 2013. Alaa Hilayl, one of the group's heavily glorified "martyrs" and leader of its submilitia Kataib Malik al-Ashtar, was one of the first Shiite commanders to publicly announce combat operations in the Aleppo area in spring 2013.
Meanwhile, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (HHN, a.k.a. "The Hezbollah Movement of the Outstanding," or simply Harakat al-Nujaba) has been the other main Iraqi Shiite player in Syria recruitment, and its background is similar to KIA's. HHN emerged from Iranian-controlled Sadrist splinter group Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) in 2013 and is led by that group's cofounder, Sheikh Akram Kaabi.
Internet-based propaganda and recruitment materials (mainly through social media) often serve as harbingers of larger moves by Iran's Iraqi Shiite proxies. This summer, these groups began to disseminate a collection of professionally produced imagery in a highly organized manner, all aimed at raising awareness of the Syria fight and calling for new recruits.
Previously, in fall 2014, the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite group Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS) instituted a sporadic Internet recruitment program. The group's fighters were primarily deployed for a failed campaign on Syria's southern front that lasted into early 2015. Meanwhile, HHN initiated its own limited recruitment program from December to April. Both programs demonstrated that Iraqi Shiites would once again play a major role in Syria (see PolicyWatch 2430, "Iraqi Shiite Foreign Fighters on the Rise Again in Syria"). Yet these moves were only the tip of the iceberg.
While May and June were relatively quiet on this front, Iraqi Shiite recruitment for Syria quickly began to rise in July and spiked in August. September saw slightly decreased recruitment and propaganda posts online, but the traffic was still sizable enough to be regarded as a continuation of the Syria program.
According to fighters who promoted recruitment material or were sent to Syria in late July, training for the deployment often lasted around thirty days and took place in Lebanon or Iran. Considering that most training regimens for Shiite fighters heading to Syria have lasted between two and six weeks (depending on specialization), Iran likely timed the uptick in deployments to best demonstrate unity of arms with Russia and Assad. Specifically, the main spike in recruitment activity began in earnest on July 3, the first reports of experienced KIA fighters deploying to Syria emerged on July 20, and Qasem Soleimani -- commander of Iran's elite Qods Force -- met with Russian officials on July 24.
And here's a map from ISW which "depicts confirmed locations of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders in Iraq between October 2014 and October 2015." ISW continues: "orange markers indicate where IRGC personnel were spotted in an area witnessing active military operations [and] asterisks indicate a Soleimani sighting":
In short, what's happened here is that once Tehran secured the support of the Russian air force juggernaut, the IRGC diverted its Iraqi militias to Syria, where they will now join Hezbollah and ensure that Putin's airstrikes are bolstered when needed by effective ground support.
The announcement this week by Baghdad that Iraq would welcome Russian airstrikes against ISIS indicates that once Moscow and Tehran have restored Assad and stabilized Syria, the joint air and ground campaign will move to Iraq, a strategic shift that will complete what we have characterized as an outright Mid-East coup.
If this thesis materializes, it will mean that the West's attempt to destabilize the Assad regime has not only failed, but has in fact opened the door for Iran to seize control of the Mid-East and for Russia to reestablish itself as a global superpower capable of bringing its influence to bear on any nation at any time.
It's your move Washington, and the stakes couldn't possibly be higher...
I think this is a simplistic view of situation. ISIS is able to win, IMHO, due to following factors -nit wrote:I seriously hope that someone in Delhi is taking lessons on what is happening in Syria & Iraq.
It is amazing that a rag tag militias with ak's, rpg, atm & manpand is able to almost destroy an entie country in a 4 year attrition war. Purely on the bais of numbers! Given that this a Sunni war, needless to say Paks would have been involved. It is no brainer that Paks would ask the Sunni Iraqis and Syrians to return the favour. Whenever the dust settles, the entire region will have armed, unemployed men. Just like we had post Afghan conflict.
All the PA has to do is hire them. There would be unlimited supply of brutal battle hardened men joining the call for "Sunni" kashmir jihad. Even if these are concentrated on the Indo-Pak border and engage us in a attritation war, it will cause huge damages. Remember how it was when Afghan were rented by PA. We now have huge supply of battle hardened jobless men from Afghan, Chechen, Iraq, Syria etc.
It is not about wining. ISIS cannot win against IA. It is about tieing down a conventional force using attrition tactics. Remember when PA inducted Afghan rentals into Kashmir, the violence spiked considerably.Sid wrote:
I think this is a simplistic view of situation. ISIS is able to win, IMHO, due to following factors -
1> Resistance - Minium resistance in Iraq, and weak resistance in Syria as local forces were already bogged down in civil war.
2> Supply chain - West made sure they had ample war supplies, thru direct or indirect involvement. Money kept on pouring in from Saudi+Kuwait.
3> Foreign Intervention - somehow everyone (east+west+middle) grew an ego and got involved and no one willing to back down. No one knows who is backing what, a simple use case is US+Iran corporation against ISIS while their military advisers guiding opposing forces.
ISIS, against a well determined force cannot stand. Even in an asymmetric war. In case with Porkis, Indian forces will strike at the heart if things escalate to this level.
