subir imagen
Russian birds flying south
This is getting very interesting...
Russians in Syria
Moderators: IronMikeGolf, Mad Russian, WildCatNL, cbelva, IronManBeta, CapnDarwin
Russians in Syria
It sure deserves a separate thread.
subir imagen
Russian birds flying south
This is getting very interesting...
subir imagen
Russian birds flying south
This is getting very interesting...
Lest we forget.
RE: Russians in Syria
Better there than Ukraine.
-
SwampYankee68
- Posts: 578
- Joined: Wed May 08, 2002 9:37 am
- Location: Connecticut, U.S.
RE: Russians in Syria
Have at it. Let Vlad have his warm water port and all that. Stabilize that nightmare of a country and maybe it will stop hemorrhaging refuges.
"The only way I got to keep them Tigers busy is to let them shoot holes in me!"
RE: Russians in Syria
If they are there really to fight IS, then I'd be more than happy. But I doubt that. Most likely Russian objective is to preserve Assad regime, which is focused on fighting other opposition factions. The majority of the refugees are running away from government forces, not from IS.
What's interesting, Crimea seems to be the main staging base for the Russians on their route to Syria.
What's interesting, Crimea seems to be the main staging base for the Russians on their route to Syria.
Lest we forget.
RE: Russians in Syria
Well, Uncle Sam and his friends has and had lots of warm ports all over the place and I can't find a way to say "job well done, sir!". Why cant Vlad try? Is it because he is a bad boy? [:D] The always need to have a bad guy in order to point at him ones frustrations and the consequences of a poor policy. I can't say it is not easier that way...it is always the other fault.
"MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday defended Russia’s military support for Syria, saying it was necessary to defeat the Islamic State and “terrorist aggression.”
Speaking at a meeting of a regional security bloc led by Russia, Putin rejected Western criticism that his support of President Bashar al-Assad has prolonged Syria’s bloody war, and he implied that the West’s backing for Syrian rebels has led to Europe’s refugee crisis.
“We support the government of Syria in its opposition to terrorist aggression,” Putin said in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, according to a transcript of his remarks. “We have provided and will provide necessary military and technical support and call on other nations to join us.”
Russia has been vocal in its political support for the Syrian government since the beginning of the conflict but has been reticent about its provision of military aid. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman confirmed last Wednesday for the first time that Russian military advisers were present in Syria, saying that their mission was to train Syrian troops to use arms and military equipment imported from Russia.
We must sideline geopolitical ambitions, refrain from so-called double standards, from the policy of direct or indirect use of separate terrorist groups to achieve opportunistic goals, including the change of governments and regimes that may be disagreeable to whomever,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eu ... story.html
"MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday defended Russia’s military support for Syria, saying it was necessary to defeat the Islamic State and “terrorist aggression.”
Speaking at a meeting of a regional security bloc led by Russia, Putin rejected Western criticism that his support of President Bashar al-Assad has prolonged Syria’s bloody war, and he implied that the West’s backing for Syrian rebels has led to Europe’s refugee crisis.
“We support the government of Syria in its opposition to terrorist aggression,” Putin said in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, according to a transcript of his remarks. “We have provided and will provide necessary military and technical support and call on other nations to join us.”
Russia has been vocal in its political support for the Syrian government since the beginning of the conflict but has been reticent about its provision of military aid. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman confirmed last Wednesday for the first time that Russian military advisers were present in Syria, saying that their mission was to train Syrian troops to use arms and military equipment imported from Russia.
We must sideline geopolitical ambitions, refrain from so-called double standards, from the policy of direct or indirect use of separate terrorist groups to achieve opportunistic goals, including the change of governments and regimes that may be disagreeable to whomever,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eu ... story.html
RE: Russians in Syria
Russian objective in the region is at minimum not any better or prettier than the main objectives of the US-led western powers coalition for the region...I dont understand this anti-Russian paranoia.
Obama and the Royals: Human Rights Aren’t a Concern, When Oil is at Stake
Finian Cunningham
AP / Hasan Jamali
Whereas American support for Israel has both religious antecedents and is based on a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, elsewhere in the region, the supply of oil and lucrative arms contracts continue to drive conflicts and regimes which at times seem centuries behind the rest of the world.
While pandering to the most repressive regimes on Earth with the finest American hospitality last week, President Obama came out with some outlandish, ludicrous statements.
Barack Obama was hosting the royal rulers of the six Persian Gulf Arab states in Washington. First there was the VIP treatment and photo-ops on the White House's South Lawn, then a fireside chat in the Oval Office, followed by a private meeting at the president's mountain retreat at Camp David in Maryland, some 100km north of the capital.
The oil-rich Arab guests hailed from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain. These sheikhdoms — historically carved out of the Arabian desert by the British Empire — are among the most wealthy and the most repressive regimes in the world.
Their rulers are pampered hereditary scions who systematically curtail free speech and public gatherings, ruling with an iron-fist. In all of these despotic regimes, people are routinely flung into dungeons for daring to make public comments that might be deemed critical of the ruling elite. In Qatar, for example, a young poet was jailed for 15 years because he wrote a poem that was mildly critical of the ruling Al Thani family, whose emir, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, was in Obama's company this past week.
In Saudi Arabia, the ruling House of Saud has publicly beheaded 80 people this year alone; their blood-stained corpses were then dangled from helicopters as a warning to would-be offenders. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was also among those enjoying Obama's hospitality.
Furthermore, the warped version of Islam espoused by the Gulf despots — called Wahhabism — is rabidly intolerant of any other form of religion, including more conventional forms of Sunni or Shia Islam, let alone Christianity and other faiths. All are condemned as "infidels" by the Gulf Arab rulers in their obscurantist, backward ideology.
This extreme intolerance under Wahhabism was encouraged by the British imperialists when Saudi Arabia was first formed as a state in 1932. It proved back then to be an efficient tool for imposing tyranny and crushing any dissent toward the rulers and their imperial master.
The same holds today. Washington has replaced London as the main international patron of the Gulf Arab dynasties. But their extremism still continues to serve as a tool for exerting geopolitical control in this vital oil-rich region.
In response to the high cost of US shale, Saudi Arabia has been selling its massive stockpile of crude oil at rock-bottom prices.
That explains why the Arab sheikhs in Washington this past week are among the foremost treasurers and arms suppliers for the myriad terror groups ranging from Al Qaeda to ISIL. These groups continue to threaten the Middle East, inciting sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, destabilizing governments and fomenting regime change, as in Libya and Syria.
The financial and armaments links between the Saudis, Qataris and other Gulf despots on the one hand and terrorist mercenary groups on the other is well documented. Even US officials have acknowledged this; for example, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was revealed through WikiLeaks disclosures to be well aware of the role of Saudi Arabia in supporting Al Qaeda-linked terror networks. So too was the former US ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, who is also on record in 2010 as saying that the Saudi regime was instrumental in fuelling sectarian violence in that country.
Yet Obama regaled the Arab tyrants in Washington last week, saying that the US and the sheikhdoms are the "cornerstone of peace, stability and security in the Middle East."
The president added: "The United States and Saudi Arabia have an extraordinary friendship and relationship that dates back to Franklin Roosevelt [in 1945]."
All this was said by Obama with a straight face and sincere intonation. Which raises the question: is he a very good liar, or is this guy just really stupid? Why does the US continue to funnel billions of dollars of weapons every year to the Gulf dictatorships in the hopes that this will ensure peace and stability if these regimes are complicit in the terrorist activity that threatens the tranquility of the Muslim world?
Right now and for the past nearly seven weeks, the Saudi-led Gulf states have been pounding the people of Yemen day and night with American-supplied warplanes and bombs, including internationally banned cluster bombs that kill everything in their blast radius. Thousands of Yemeni women and children have been slaughtered in this US-backed campaign against the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia may trigger a new kind of arms race in the middle east, as leaders insist the gulf state wants to match Iran's newly established nuclear enrichment capabilities.
The Saudi-led aerial bombardment has blockaded Yemen from air and sea routes delivering food, fuel and medical aid. The country depends on exports for 90 per cent of its food and fuel. Some 80 per cent of the Yemeni population of 24 million are now feared to be facing starvation and extreme privation. Children are dying from wounds and diseases because there is no transportation. Families are huddling in sewers to avoid air strikes.
In this desert country, diesel fuel is essential for drawing drinking-water from wells. Because of the Saudi-imposed blockade on Yemen, people are left without any drinking-water. This Saudi-led and American-backed barbarity breaks every precept of international and humanitarian law under the baseless, contemptible pretext of "protecting Yemen from Iranian-supported rebels."
This barbarity of collective punishment meted out to civilians was condemned this week by United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Johannes van der Klaauw.
On April 28, American-supplied Saudi fighter jets bombed the runway and traffic-control tower of the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in order to prevent an Iranian civilian cargo plane from landing with humanitarian aid. An Iranian cargo ship, coordinated with the International Red Cross Committee, is due to dock in Yemen next week with food and medical supplies. The vessel may again be blocked by Saudi forces, thus provoking a possible war with Iran.
These are the kind of maniacal, lawless regimes that Washington considers "extraordinary friends", who together, allegedly, maintain peace, stability and security in the Middle East.
We, of course, shouldn't exempt Israel from condemnation; right up until last year it has been jumping at every excuse to fight one-sided wars of annihilation against its Palestinian neighbors. The 2014 Gaza conflict claimed over 2,100 Palestinian civilian lives; despite deafening state propaganda in the social and traditional media promoting the state's response to the Gaza menace, only six civilians died on the Israeli side.
While it can be argued that American support for Israel has both religious antecedents and is based on an extremely powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, elsewhere in the region, the supply of oil, the propping up of the petrodollar, and lucrative contracts for arms dealers continue to drive ongoing conflicts and regimes which at times seem centuries behind the rest of the world.
If American activity in the region seems confusing, it's instructive to view it as a reaction to Arab nationalism and the British experience in the region. When British assets were nationalized in countries like Iran and Egypt, the British and the Americans were made to understand that local leaders such as Mohammad Mosaddegh answered to their citizens and could not relied upon to facilitate the transfer of oil to companies like the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). As long as the US had a reliable local regime to work with which was fundamentally anti-communist, it would be ensured that the oil would continue to flow. The establishment of monarchies in the region as client states was a modern-day Metternich-style solution.
Unfortunately, the establishment of OPEC and other similar events eventually revealed to the US that it couldn't control the region completely; the Saudi monster it had helped to perpetuate was one that was easier to appease than to tame. President Obama was compelled, for example, to cut a major state visit to India short earlier this year to attend the funeral of Saudi King Abdullah, and was joined by Vice President Joe Biden as well as Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA Director John Brennan, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention Senator John McCain. Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether or not Obama is ignorant to praise the Saudis; maybe we should ask how much power the Saudis really have.
Obama and the Royals: Human Rights Aren’t a Concern, When Oil is at Stake
Finian Cunningham
AP / Hasan Jamali
Whereas American support for Israel has both religious antecedents and is based on a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, elsewhere in the region, the supply of oil and lucrative arms contracts continue to drive conflicts and regimes which at times seem centuries behind the rest of the world.
While pandering to the most repressive regimes on Earth with the finest American hospitality last week, President Obama came out with some outlandish, ludicrous statements.
Barack Obama was hosting the royal rulers of the six Persian Gulf Arab states in Washington. First there was the VIP treatment and photo-ops on the White House's South Lawn, then a fireside chat in the Oval Office, followed by a private meeting at the president's mountain retreat at Camp David in Maryland, some 100km north of the capital.
The oil-rich Arab guests hailed from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain. These sheikhdoms — historically carved out of the Arabian desert by the British Empire — are among the most wealthy and the most repressive regimes in the world.
Their rulers are pampered hereditary scions who systematically curtail free speech and public gatherings, ruling with an iron-fist. In all of these despotic regimes, people are routinely flung into dungeons for daring to make public comments that might be deemed critical of the ruling elite. In Qatar, for example, a young poet was jailed for 15 years because he wrote a poem that was mildly critical of the ruling Al Thani family, whose emir, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, was in Obama's company this past week.
In Saudi Arabia, the ruling House of Saud has publicly beheaded 80 people this year alone; their blood-stained corpses were then dangled from helicopters as a warning to would-be offenders. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was also among those enjoying Obama's hospitality.
Furthermore, the warped version of Islam espoused by the Gulf despots — called Wahhabism — is rabidly intolerant of any other form of religion, including more conventional forms of Sunni or Shia Islam, let alone Christianity and other faiths. All are condemned as "infidels" by the Gulf Arab rulers in their obscurantist, backward ideology.
This extreme intolerance under Wahhabism was encouraged by the British imperialists when Saudi Arabia was first formed as a state in 1932. It proved back then to be an efficient tool for imposing tyranny and crushing any dissent toward the rulers and their imperial master.
The same holds today. Washington has replaced London as the main international patron of the Gulf Arab dynasties. But their extremism still continues to serve as a tool for exerting geopolitical control in this vital oil-rich region.
In response to the high cost of US shale, Saudi Arabia has been selling its massive stockpile of crude oil at rock-bottom prices.
That explains why the Arab sheikhs in Washington this past week are among the foremost treasurers and arms suppliers for the myriad terror groups ranging from Al Qaeda to ISIL. These groups continue to threaten the Middle East, inciting sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, destabilizing governments and fomenting regime change, as in Libya and Syria.
The financial and armaments links between the Saudis, Qataris and other Gulf despots on the one hand and terrorist mercenary groups on the other is well documented. Even US officials have acknowledged this; for example, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was revealed through WikiLeaks disclosures to be well aware of the role of Saudi Arabia in supporting Al Qaeda-linked terror networks. So too was the former US ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, who is also on record in 2010 as saying that the Saudi regime was instrumental in fuelling sectarian violence in that country.
Yet Obama regaled the Arab tyrants in Washington last week, saying that the US and the sheikhdoms are the "cornerstone of peace, stability and security in the Middle East."
The president added: "The United States and Saudi Arabia have an extraordinary friendship and relationship that dates back to Franklin Roosevelt [in 1945]."
All this was said by Obama with a straight face and sincere intonation. Which raises the question: is he a very good liar, or is this guy just really stupid? Why does the US continue to funnel billions of dollars of weapons every year to the Gulf dictatorships in the hopes that this will ensure peace and stability if these regimes are complicit in the terrorist activity that threatens the tranquility of the Muslim world?
Right now and for the past nearly seven weeks, the Saudi-led Gulf states have been pounding the people of Yemen day and night with American-supplied warplanes and bombs, including internationally banned cluster bombs that kill everything in their blast radius. Thousands of Yemeni women and children have been slaughtered in this US-backed campaign against the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia may trigger a new kind of arms race in the middle east, as leaders insist the gulf state wants to match Iran's newly established nuclear enrichment capabilities.
The Saudi-led aerial bombardment has blockaded Yemen from air and sea routes delivering food, fuel and medical aid. The country depends on exports for 90 per cent of its food and fuel. Some 80 per cent of the Yemeni population of 24 million are now feared to be facing starvation and extreme privation. Children are dying from wounds and diseases because there is no transportation. Families are huddling in sewers to avoid air strikes.
In this desert country, diesel fuel is essential for drawing drinking-water from wells. Because of the Saudi-imposed blockade on Yemen, people are left without any drinking-water. This Saudi-led and American-backed barbarity breaks every precept of international and humanitarian law under the baseless, contemptible pretext of "protecting Yemen from Iranian-supported rebels."
This barbarity of collective punishment meted out to civilians was condemned this week by United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Johannes van der Klaauw.
On April 28, American-supplied Saudi fighter jets bombed the runway and traffic-control tower of the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in order to prevent an Iranian civilian cargo plane from landing with humanitarian aid. An Iranian cargo ship, coordinated with the International Red Cross Committee, is due to dock in Yemen next week with food and medical supplies. The vessel may again be blocked by Saudi forces, thus provoking a possible war with Iran.
These are the kind of maniacal, lawless regimes that Washington considers "extraordinary friends", who together, allegedly, maintain peace, stability and security in the Middle East.
We, of course, shouldn't exempt Israel from condemnation; right up until last year it has been jumping at every excuse to fight one-sided wars of annihilation against its Palestinian neighbors. The 2014 Gaza conflict claimed over 2,100 Palestinian civilian lives; despite deafening state propaganda in the social and traditional media promoting the state's response to the Gaza menace, only six civilians died on the Israeli side.
While it can be argued that American support for Israel has both religious antecedents and is based on an extremely powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, elsewhere in the region, the supply of oil, the propping up of the petrodollar, and lucrative contracts for arms dealers continue to drive ongoing conflicts and regimes which at times seem centuries behind the rest of the world.
If American activity in the region seems confusing, it's instructive to view it as a reaction to Arab nationalism and the British experience in the region. When British assets were nationalized in countries like Iran and Egypt, the British and the Americans were made to understand that local leaders such as Mohammad Mosaddegh answered to their citizens and could not relied upon to facilitate the transfer of oil to companies like the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). As long as the US had a reliable local regime to work with which was fundamentally anti-communist, it would be ensured that the oil would continue to flow. The establishment of monarchies in the region as client states was a modern-day Metternich-style solution.
Unfortunately, the establishment of OPEC and other similar events eventually revealed to the US that it couldn't control the region completely; the Saudi monster it had helped to perpetuate was one that was easier to appease than to tame. President Obama was compelled, for example, to cut a major state visit to India short earlier this year to attend the funeral of Saudi King Abdullah, and was joined by Vice President Joe Biden as well as Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA Director John Brennan, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention Senator John McCain. Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether or not Obama is ignorant to praise the Saudis; maybe we should ask how much power the Saudis really have.
RE: Russians in Syria
The majority of the refugees are running away from government forces, not from IS.
You should be very very careful with statements like this.
"Syrian Refugees Escaping ISIS Put Lives at Risk on Dangerous Seas. The brutality of ISIS and the ongoing war in Syria has triggered the biggest wave of refugees in modern history".
You can't measure that. The fact is that things blew up since the absent of any viable government in Syria. Assad in fact barely rules his country, the mess is absolute. I am directly involve in a camp in my country that receives lots of Syrian nationals. I have close friends that are Syrian descendants and that's why I got involved. ISIS brutality is a frequent common history among them and one key reason to give up and flee. It is pure terror what you can see in their eyes when they talk about it.
RE: Russians in Syria
Keep in mind that IS has conquered sparsely populated, desert areas of Syria. From the other hand, Assad is razing to the ground entire cities closer to the coast. Most of the refugees are running away from Assad troops. To lesser degree from Turkish army ( the Kurds ) and IS ( Yazidis ).
Russian move into Syria could be a brilliant one. It serves two main purposes: it preserves Assad as a Russian proxy, helps to reestablish good relations with the west and restore Russian reputation damaged by the events in Ukraine.
Russian move into Syria could be a brilliant one. It serves two main purposes: it preserves Assad as a Russian proxy, helps to reestablish good relations with the west and restore Russian reputation damaged by the events in Ukraine.
Lest we forget.
RE: Russians in Syria
I am talking about the freaking sense of terror. I doesnt matter if ISIS is mainly in the middle of a unpopulated desert. The brutality is so unbelivable that the terror had spreaded out in the entire region. When you heard about lunatics that impale entire families alive, that could be happening at the other side of the country, you just grab your loved ones and run. Add to that there is no government anymore and several other groups are fighting each other.
RE: Russians in Syria
Russian reputation based on western geopolitical interests? Does not mean much for me. US has a lot of bad reputation worldwide based on others interests.
RE: Russians in Syria
Uh-huh... Riiiiight. You keep telling yourself that.
We are all dreams of the Giant Space Butterfly.
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CapnDarwin
- Posts: 9272
- Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:34 pm
- Location: Newark, OH
- Contact:
RE: Russians in Syria
Let's keep it civil in here with these current events topics or we will be forced to take them down or have them moved into the main Matrix forum.
Thanks.
Thanks.
OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!
Cap'n Darwin aka Jim Snyder
On Target Simulations LLC
Cap'n Darwin aka Jim Snyder
On Target Simulations LLC
-
TheWombat_matrixforum
- Posts: 466
- Joined: Sat Aug 02, 2003 5:37 am
RE: Russians in Syria
It's interesting from a military point of view, in that whenever you have a power vacuum like Syria, it becomes a tempting arena for various forces to play in. Russia has had a long-standing strategic relationship with Syria; the port of Latakia was a significant factor in the USSR's Med strategy during the cold war, and of course Moscow has been supporting Syria's military since the 1960s. In pure geo-political terms, what the Russians are doing is not only predictable, it is fairly normal. We'd do the same thing, and have in the past.
I'll leave aside the issues of good and evil--that's not terribly useful when dealing with international politics, as it's a pretty swampy mess, and we really don't need an ideological battle going on here. But there are some great questions this Russian build-up presents. Such as, what are they going to do? Are the assets they're bringing in simply to make sure that anti-Assad forces don't get any ideas about Latakia, which so far has avoided a lot of the fighting it seems? I'd suspect the Russians also hope their presence is an indirect boost to Assad, who they regard (and I think with some reason) as at the very least the least of the evils in the mix there. Will they intervene more directly? If they were to mount operations against ISIS, how could the US or the West complain, as the US and others are already deep into a campaign against the same foes. What might happen if, instead, the Russians help the regime's forces against the FSA or Al Nusra or other, non-ISIS forces? Complexities galore!
And tactically, it will be interesting to see just what the Russians are sending, as it might give us a clue as to what they intend, or how they intend to fight if they do fight. How much will Russia's experience in Georgia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, or even more distantly Afghanistan affect their planning? I doubt we'd get much interesting info on things like armored combat per se, as the level of armored force being used in Syria is pretty crappy in terms of major-league tank formations, but there could be interesting insights into infantry ops and special ops.
The Americans have voiced concern over air-defense fighters being deployed, but given that the skies over Syria are pretty common venues for coalition aircraft, and that some of those aircraft are from countries that, let us say, don't inspire that much confidence, it's rather hard to blame the Russians for wanting some sort of air cover just in case. Though I suspect, the real reason is to thumb their noses at the USA, which is also a bit of turnabout is fair play probably. It's old Cold War posturing returned with a new veneer of paint I suppose.
I'll leave aside the issues of good and evil--that's not terribly useful when dealing with international politics, as it's a pretty swampy mess, and we really don't need an ideological battle going on here. But there are some great questions this Russian build-up presents. Such as, what are they going to do? Are the assets they're bringing in simply to make sure that anti-Assad forces don't get any ideas about Latakia, which so far has avoided a lot of the fighting it seems? I'd suspect the Russians also hope their presence is an indirect boost to Assad, who they regard (and I think with some reason) as at the very least the least of the evils in the mix there. Will they intervene more directly? If they were to mount operations against ISIS, how could the US or the West complain, as the US and others are already deep into a campaign against the same foes. What might happen if, instead, the Russians help the regime's forces against the FSA or Al Nusra or other, non-ISIS forces? Complexities galore!
And tactically, it will be interesting to see just what the Russians are sending, as it might give us a clue as to what they intend, or how they intend to fight if they do fight. How much will Russia's experience in Georgia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, or even more distantly Afghanistan affect their planning? I doubt we'd get much interesting info on things like armored combat per se, as the level of armored force being used in Syria is pretty crappy in terms of major-league tank formations, but there could be interesting insights into infantry ops and special ops.
The Americans have voiced concern over air-defense fighters being deployed, but given that the skies over Syria are pretty common venues for coalition aircraft, and that some of those aircraft are from countries that, let us say, don't inspire that much confidence, it's rather hard to blame the Russians for wanting some sort of air cover just in case. Though I suspect, the real reason is to thumb their noses at the USA, which is also a bit of turnabout is fair play probably. It's old Cold War posturing returned with a new veneer of paint I suppose.
RE: Russians in Syria
Thats a more interesting reasoning!
"I'll leave aside the issues of good and evil--that's not terribly useful when dealing with international politics,"
This is mainly my point during this entire Russia in Ukraine, Russia in Syria stuff. I have been just trying to gather infos from the other side perspective all this time. Otherwise this will be another discussion about how bad russians are and how the source of all bad things they are. If you want to blame someone about a crisis consider equally all parties involved. Specially in geopolitical situations, because indeed they are very complex.
Cheers for you all,
"I'll leave aside the issues of good and evil--that's not terribly useful when dealing with international politics,"
This is mainly my point during this entire Russia in Ukraine, Russia in Syria stuff. I have been just trying to gather infos from the other side perspective all this time. Otherwise this will be another discussion about how bad russians are and how the source of all bad things they are. If you want to blame someone about a crisis consider equally all parties involved. Specially in geopolitical situations, because indeed they are very complex.
Cheers for you all,
RE: Russians in Syria
Easy to say than do..but this might be a first step...
"To that end Putin proposes a revival of what is in essence the peace plan to bring an end to the Syrian conflict proposed by Kofi Annan at the Geneva Conference in 2012 – that there should be negotiations between the Syrian factions to set up a power sharing government until a final settlement of the conflict can be agreed.
As Putin points out, Assad has accepted this proposal (“President Assad is ready to involve the moderate segment of the opposition forces in these processes, in managing the state”)."
"To that end Putin proposes a revival of what is in essence the peace plan to bring an end to the Syrian conflict proposed by Kofi Annan at the Geneva Conference in 2012 – that there should be negotiations between the Syrian factions to set up a power sharing government until a final settlement of the conflict can be agreed.
As Putin points out, Assad has accepted this proposal (“President Assad is ready to involve the moderate segment of the opposition forces in these processes, in managing the state”)."
RE: Russians in Syria
@TheWombat
I'm pretty sure that we won't see Russian troops involved in the direct combat. Most likely they will step up training of the government forces and deliver them some weapon systems. The presence of Russian combat aircraft is interesting. I guess Russians want to make sure, that the US led coalition doesn't attack Assad forces and infrastructure from the air.
I'm pretty sure that we won't see Russian troops involved in the direct combat. Most likely they will step up training of the government forces and deliver them some weapon systems. The presence of Russian combat aircraft is interesting. I guess Russians want to make sure, that the US led coalition doesn't attack Assad forces and infrastructure from the air.
Lest we forget.
RE: Russians in Syria
By the way, the planes from the first photo are not Su-27's. They are Su-30SM's.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... -who-13895
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... -who-13895
Lest we forget.
