U.S. Army: Russia defeated U.S. in Syria

Anyone who has ever studied the Vietnam War knows that military victories and political victories are two different things. The U.S. Army is aware of that lesson.

I was interested to see in an article in the new issue of “Military Review,” a publication of the U.S. Army, conclude that, “Russia appears to have won at least a partial victory in Syria, and done so with impressive efficiency, flexibility, and coordination between military and political action.”
Looking at Putin, the article states that “the Russian campaign might be judged a qualified success from the standpoint of the Kremlin’s own objective.”
As for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the authors (who are not Army employees—one is at the Center for Naval Analyses, and the other is at the Kennan Institute) conclude “it is certainly a defeat for those who opposed the Russian-led coalition.”

This obviously wasn't a military defeat. This was a political defeat.
The reason is because Russia's agenda in Syria was limited and clearly defined.

America's political agenda in Syria is open-ended and evolving.

Together, they lay out the Trump administration’s case for an extended military campaign in Syria “to defeat ISIS’s physical ‘caliphate’ and achieve the group’s permanent defeat” based on the 2001 Authorization for the U.S. of Military Force, the vaguely-worded authorization passed just days after the September 11th attacks that has formed the legal basis for the Global War on Terror.

Since ISIS didn't exist on 9/11 and is not part of al-Qaeda, this is a laughable justification for our invasion of Syria.

The release of the letters comes several weeks after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking at Stanford’s Hoover Institution back in mid-January, revealed a set of far-reaching objectives for the country, including efforts to diminish Iranian influence, help bring about a political transition, and create the conditions for the return of Syrian refugees.

The justification for our invasion of Syria has evolved past any possible legal grounds. "Efforts to diminish Iranian influence"? What does that even mean?
We have 20 military bases in Syria's Kurdistan region without a clear goal.
And then today they created a whole new justification.

The Pentagon’s top commander in the Middle East told Congress today that Iraq’s self-defense gives the United States a legal justification to intervene in next-door Syria.

We could use that bullsh*t statement to justify invading Iran too. Or Mexico.
Speaking of Iranian influence.

Even as the Trump administration shifts its focus to great powers such as China and Russia, the Pentagon is asking for a $2 billion increase in munitions for operations in Iraq and Syria in its fiscal year 2019 budget request to fight IS. The Pentagon also wants $290 million to allow Iraq to put in place scanners, 1,500 border guards and other equipment to secure the Qaim, Bukamal, and Fish Khabur border crossings, in part to prevent Iran from moving troops, tanks and guns at its leisure.

Isn't that up to Iraq to decide who crosses their borders?
maybe that's why Iraq is demanding a strict timeline for our withdraw from their nation.

That’s potentially going to be a problem though, because while the other nations are all making clear their presence is very temporary, the US has been very public from the start that this is a permanent deployment, and they don’t plan to ever leave.

Which brings us to At-Tanf in Syria. It's America-occupied Syria near the Iraq border, outside of the Kurdish region. Our only justification for this base is that it sits on the most direct land route between Tehran and Damascus.

Aссording to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit, the United States has deployed 600 troops in the international coalition’s base in At-Tanf in Syria, adjacent to the Iraqi border.
..“The situation when the United States is virtually occupying a 55-kilometer [34-mile] zone around At-Tanf on the Syrian-Jordanian border without the consent of the Syrian Government, is bewildering. This zone includes the infamous Rukban refugee camp, where militants from illegal armed groups are freely moving near the US Armed Forces,” he said.

We have occupied a large area of Syria, where we refuse to allow government forces to enter, and give safe harbor to armed rebel forces.
That sounds like an act of war to me.

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all."
- John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821

Tags: 
Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Steven D's picture

in Syria, but if not there, than somewhere else.

And it seems that is what the Pentagon, CIA, MIC and the Democrats want.

And Trump either lied about his intentions in foreign policy during the 2016 campaign, or worse, has been coerced because of the #Russiagate nonsense to appear tough, thus risking confrontations in N.Korea, or with Russia in East Europe or Syria, or with Iran.

As the Admiral in The Hunt for Red October said, "This business will get out of control! It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

@Steven D

up
0 users have voted.
dance you monster's picture

The Pentagon’s top commander in the Middle East told Congress today that Iraq’s Ukraine's self-defense gives the United States a legal justification to intervene in next-door Syria Russia.

This would be scary if we actually had the cojones to do this where someone might shoot back.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

arming and funding ISIS, Al Qaida offshoots and the White Helmets? It would be a lot easier to fight ISIS if we weren't doing that. And the pentagon needs $2 billion more? I think not. They just got $54 billion more than what Trump asked for. But let's cut our social programs because there isn't enough money for them. Sheesh.

The other thing that Putin accomplished was stopping regime change. This is what he said he would do a few years ago. Glad to see someone trying to stop us.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Meteor Man's picture

And expensive too! The military only gets 21% of the total budget and will still only be getting a lousy trillion dollars in 2022:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_fy19bs22018n

I don't suppose this will ever be breaking news at CNN or The NY Times or included in Trump's daily briefing.

up
0 users have voted.

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

snoopydawg's picture

@Meteor Man

Most of the money goes to defense companies and contractors. This was part of my rant about the budget.

From the chart: defense- 21% welfare-8%. Yep there is something wrong with this. Especially because many of the troops are on food stamps while the mercenaries are paid so much more.
SMDH!

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Meteor Man

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

CB's picture

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@CB Well, the Kurds are not all united.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

CB's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
My mind was elsewhere.

Yes, I know that the Kurds are a disparate group. Maybe if they could get their shit together and function as a cohesive group they might get somewhere.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@CB I'm afraid their political views--as opposed to views on having a Kurdish homeland--are too disaparate.

People who want to work with western colonizers aren't likely to be able to work with left-wing anarchists.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

CB's picture

Here's an interesting read on the subject:

Missile-gate
by Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.

President Putin’s 2-hour long address yesterday to the Federal Assembly, a joint session of both houses of Russia’s bicameral legislature, plus large numbers of Russia’s cultural, business and other elites constituted his platform for the upcoming presidential election on March 18. This, in lieu of participation in the televised debates on all federal television channels in which other seven candidates are busy these days.

But as is the case with many of Vladimir Putin’s major presentations, the speech yesterday was addressed to a far broader audience than the Russian electorate. Many of the estimated 700 journalists invited to attend were foreign correspondents. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that the speech was directed abroad, precisely to the United States.
...
I would like to believe that the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington will not be so giddy or superficial in judging what they heard yesterday from Mr. Putin. If that is so, they will be urgently recommending to their President to enter into very broad negotiations with the Russians over arms control. And they will be going back to their staffs to completely revise their recommendations with respect to the military hardware and installations which the United States is financing in 2019 and beyond. Our present budget, including the trillion or so being appropriated for upgrading nuclear warheads and producing more low-yield weapons is a waste of taxpayer money.
...
Moreover, the roll-out yesterday of new Russian weaponry that changes the world power balance was just one in a chain of remarkable Russian achievements over the past four years that caught US leadership entirely by surprise. The explanation has till now been the alleged unpredictability of Vladimir Putin, even if absolutely nothing he did could not have been foreseen by someone paying close attention.

One prime example was the Russian capture of Crimea in February-March 2014 without a shot being fired or a single fatality in circumstances where the 20,000 Russian troops based in their leased Sevastopol enclave confronted 20,000 Ukrainian forces on the peninsula. Western media spoke of a Russian “invasion” which amounted to nothing more than the Russian troops leaving their barracks. The Russians had used nothing more exotic than psychological warfare, old-fashioned “psy-ops” as it is called in the States executed to perfection by pros, all dating from the time of Von Clausewitz.
...
The answer is not to be found in just one or two elements, for sure. Nor is it a failure that developed recently. There is a good measure of blinding complacency about Russia as a “failed state” that has cut across the whole US political establishment since the 1990s when the Russia was flat on its back. One simply could not imagine the Kremlin rising to the challenge of its missions in Crimea, in Syria, in development of the world’s most sophisticated high-tech armaments.

And it is not only blindness to things Russian. It is a fundamental failure to grasp that state power anywhere is not dependent only on GDP and demographic trends but also on grit, patriotic determination and the intelligence of thousands of researchers, engineers and production personnel. This conceptual poverty infects some our most brilliant Realpolitik political scientists in the academic community who in principle should be open to understanding the world as it is, not the world as we wish it to be. Somehow we seem to have forgotten the lesson of David and Goliath. Somehow we have forgotten the Israeli numbers of 4 or 5 million standing up militarily to 100 million Arabs. It was unimaginable to us that Russia would be the David to our Goliath.
...

up
0 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

@CB  
“standing up” to 200 million Americans, too, when Israeli warplanes blasted the U.S.S. Liberty . . .

up
0 users have voted.