Is Putin In Trouble In Syria?

There have been regular reports that the Russian bombing campaign in Syria has mainly targeted the most dangerous enemies of the Assad regime. That would include the “Free Syrian Army”. Now, after bombing them for some weeks, Russia is offering them assistance. Russia offers air cover for anti-Assad rebels.

Speaking after a surprise summit between Syria’s embattled leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin this week, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged moves towards presidential and parliamentary polls in the war-torn country.

Representatives of Syria’s Western-backed opposition sounded incredulous, saying Russia should first stop bombing moderate rebels and that talk of elections was premature.

And that is not all that is going on in Syria.

Battle cuts Syrian government-held road to Aleppo

Aleppo is divided into a western section controlled by the government, and an eastern section held by insurgents.

The attack by Islamic State on the road appears to be a response to the government advance towards the Kweiras air base, where Syrian troops are besieged by Islamic State fighters.

The government ground offensive is backed by allied militia and Russian air strikes.

A separate ground offensive is also targeting Syrian rebel groups to the south and southwest of Aleppo and government forces have captured a number of villages in that area.

It looks to me like the Russians have bit off more than they can chew. Or it may be that the Russian offensive was merely a delaying tactic to give the Russians enough time to withdraw from Syria. That notion was wild speculation when I first suggested it. It doesn’t seem so wild today.

Update: 29 October 2015 1352z

Islamic State Cuts Off Crucial Supply Line for Syrian Regime to Aleppo – WSJ

Islamic State militants cut off a crucial supply line for Syrian regime forces and allied Iranian militias to the northern city of Aleppo after days of fighting, opposition activists in the area said Tuesday.

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria. It is currently half controlled by anti-regime forces.

Fierce battles were continuing Tuesday between Islamic State and pro-regime forces around the town of Safira, about 16 miles southeast of Aleppo, according to opposition activists. Some of these activists said Islamic State was already in control of parts of Safira.

The town lies on a critical supply line for the regime running from parts of Aleppo city that it controls to neighboring Hama province to the south and onward to the central city of Homs and the capital Damascus.

Fighting has also been under way for days at other junctures along the supply line, most notably around the towns of Athriya and Khanaser, farther south from Safira.

A news website linked to Islamic State called A’maq said regime reinforcements sent to Athriya on Tuesday were compelled to retreat after militants detonated bombs planted alongside the road.

On Monday, Islamic State captured a regime checkpoint on the stretch of road between Athriya and Khanaser in a coordinated assault that included a suicide car bombing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition group monitoring the conflict through activists inside the country.

I have also seen anecdotal reports that Syria is pulling fighters from the North of Aleppo who are trying to hold an airbase there in order to use them to reopen the highway. If the highway is kept closed the fight for the air base by Syria is doomed because of lack of supplies.

Logistics is the key to warfare.

I might add that if Aleppo is lost Damascus is next. According to maps I have seen ISIS is on the edge of Damascus to the West of the city. (more details in the WSJ article)

And if the US intervenes on the ground in Iraq? If they push ISIS to the North into Syria Assad is totally doomed. Not that he isn’t already. It just comes sooner.


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7 responses to “Is Putin In Trouble In Syria?”

  1. bob sykes Avatar
    bob sykes

    Awesome. A minor skirmish in Syria protends the collapse of Russia. Go read al fin’s delusions.

    However, we can ignore:
    * the on-going collapse of the US economy; the elimination of our middle class; the coming Dickensian immiseration of the working class.
    *A Federal Reserve that has lost control of the economy and currency.
    *An American military bogged down in unwinnable, endless wars everywhere.
    *A ruling class thirsting for war with Russia and China, both right now.
    *Two, count them two, low level race wars: Mexican on black; black on white.
    * The division of white American into two warring camps, each demanding the unconditional surrender of the other.

    But Russia and China are collapsing.

  2. Bernie Avatar
    Bernie

    To Bob Sykes comment
    Amen Brother

  3. captain*arizona Avatar
    captain*arizona

    Its always easier to get then get out as the beloved dubya found out the hard way!

  4. Simon Avatar

    bob,

    I don’t think Russia is close to collapse. But their efforts in Syria can’t be any more than a holding action and that action does not appear to be holding.

    Russia will be losing its bases in Syria. That would be a major Geo-political defeat for them.

    =================

    As to why this subject interests me? Because war fighting is not about battles per se. It is about control of supply lines.

    =================

    Our ruling class (IMO) does not thirst for war with Russia or China. It does wish to decrease their power. Slowly.

    As to US ME policy? I think the effort is to destroy all the countries of the ME to reduce that area to a tribal area. Easier to control. I think this policy was an outcome of 9/11 (or the cause of 9/11 if the conspiracists are correct) and has accelerated with the advent of fracking. ME oil is no longer the linchpin of the world economy.

  5. Simon Avatar

    The US economy is in terrible shape. Despite that it is not collapsing. The only thing I can figure out is that the Black Economy is much larger than the government estimates.

    There is another thing to think about. If jobs are going what is keeping production up? Machines. That means the same thing as it did in 1929. The US economy needs to be totally restructured. If history is any guide the restructuring will take until about 2030. A generation from the start in 2008.

  6. Simon Avatar

    And one other point. I have seen reports that if Syria falls Iran will fall too.

    In Geopolitics old grudges die hard.

  7. nomen nescio Avatar
    nomen nescio

    Leaving aside obvious attempts to change the subject, as a disinterested observer, I would note that:

    Russia in 2015 has a smaller GDP than Italy.

    Russia can’t even control the Chechens. Russia has started a shooting war with Ukraine, the country where about 85% of the old Soviet regime’s old arsenals, producing things like air-to-air missiles, solid-fuel rocket engines, tank hulls, etc., etc., etc., are still located, and which prior to the invasion traded these goods to Moscow at an exchange rate that was highly favorable to Moscow in order to prevent the Russians from turning off the natural gas. Now the Russians have turned off the natural gas, and been caught invading the eastern third of Ukraine with tens of thousands of “volunteers.” And suddenly Putin doesn’t have any more replacement solid rocket boosters for his ICBMs, or new air-to-air-missiles, or tank hulls, or…

    The USSR bankrupted itself twenty-five years ago trying to prop up an assortment of Third World puppet states. It looks like Vladimir Putin isn’t the brilliant geopolitical chessmaster everyone was saying he was–he’s just the same old KGB thug he always was, and he still doesn’t seem to grasp that he can’t give an order tomorrow morning and send fourteen mechanized army groups to drive for the Ruhr. He keeps doubling down and he keeps escalating. That was a tactic that worked, sort of, for Stalin and Brezhnev. We’ll see whether it still works for Putin. I’d say the odds are long.

    As for Syria in particular, I keep seeing people in the alternative Right blogosphere, who really ought to know better, all starry-eyed over Vlad’s imperial adventure in the Levant. Let’s see, we’ve got the Russian air force bombing indiscriminately, as is their wont, in the attempt to prop up a particularly cowardly and inept Third World puppet government and its particularly cowardly and inept army. We’ve got Spetsnaz troops on the ground, who are presumably, per their Soviet-era S.O.P., torturing and murdering their way across the countryside without restraint, without oversight, and without regard for whether the locals, who live and die by centuries-old bloodfeuds against outsiders, will begin to hate them more than they fear them. I think we’ve all seen this movie before, and I personally liked it better when it was called “Afghanistan: the Great Adventure” or perhaps “Chechnya! Afghanistan II: Electric Boogaloo.” I can’t imagine any rational reason for the West to involve itself in this quagmire on any side, nor interrupt our foes in Moscow as they leap neck-deep into the Old Muddy with a shout of “Ahh! Motherland!” once more. So presumably the Kenyan’s actions have been chosen on an irrational basis.