America would be better off accepting that Russia is a powerful and influential force. The United States finds itself at the epicenter of a major international catastrophe. Assad remains in power. Is Russia really becoming an alternative to America in the Middle East? All this is the new reality of the Middle East region...
Russia, always firm and adamant in supporting its allies and proving itself to be a reliable partner who at the same time does not impose itself, has been able to prove in recent years that it is a better choice for the Middle East region than the United States. In addition, it is also now completely clear that Assad remains in power in Syria.
As the final stage of the military conflict in Syria approaches and its transition to the stage of political settlement, American politicians increasingly have to reckon with the following reality: the whole world has truly undergone significant changes since the beginning of the civil conflict in Syria in 2011 to the present day.
Thanks to the Syrian conflict, what Israel and the United States perhaps least wanted happened: regional forces under Iranian control found themselves just a few kilometers from the border with Israel. And this, in turn, made direct military confrontation between Russia and the United States very likely. In addition, even a cursory glance at the current situation in Syria allows us to unequivocally state that the United States has not achieved its key goals in the Syrian conflict - namely, the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power. And it seems that they have already come to terms with this. The United States, having missed not only a military, but also a political victory in the conflict, having suffered heavy losses, again, both on the purely military and political fronts, must now do at least something to achieve the last possible victory here - victory at least on the humanitarian front.
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Al-Alam: Are S-300s invulnerable in Syria now?
Al Alam 03.11.2018Ośrodek Studiów Wshodnich: when will peace come to Syria?
Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich 31.10.2018The Washington Post: The role of the American base in Trump's strategy in Syria
The Washington Post 10/25/2018They must convince the population that, not in words, but in deeds, they want to save the local population from a humanitarian catastrophe. And in order to achieve this goal, Washington willy-nilly will have to cooperate with Moscow - a player who has undeniable influence on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but is also ready to listen. And for this, the United States will need to officially recognize the role that Moscow now plays in the world: it is, first of all, a real and influential force in the international community, without which not a single major conflict can be resolved. But at the same time, this does not mean that she is an international gendarme. It would also be nice for the United States, at least in some special cases, to learn to cooperate with Moscow as an equal partner.
Stephen Cook recently said that Syria is another clear example of how the United States, facing one of the largest international tragedies, nevertheless did nothing to prevent this tragedy. Cook is also, of course, correct when he argues that the United States has not learned any lessons from its inaction in the conflicts that took place in the 1990s. However, he forgets that Russia, during the same period, learned precisely from the examples and mistakes of the United States. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia watched very carefully how the United States, while undoubtedly becoming a factor of power in the Middle East, at the same time pursued a rash and adventurous policy here. It is possible that this will be the most ambitious adventurism in the entire history of the 21st century.
And now Moscow appears on the scene as a powerful influential force, which local leaders have been looking for all this time - they were looking for it in order to work with this force, and not get involved in the next adventures. And any analysis that assumes that Putin, having come to Syria, will now either weaken his position here or completely discard Syria, like a child - a boring toy, will lead to nowhere. And when Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict for the first time in 2014, and used its own (armed) forces, it thereby conveyed an important message to the whole world, and above all to the West: it is no longer ready to stand on the sidelines and indifferently watch how Somewhere in the Middle East a new power vacuum and power vacuum is emerging. She is not ready, since this directly affects her interests. And throughout the years since Russia entered the Syrian scene and remains there, Putin has continually proven that in the 21st century Russia can be more than just the world's largest arms seller.
Russia, by standing firmly behind its allies in the region and proving itself to be a truly trustworthy partner, has seized its chance to emerge as a worthy alternative to the United States for Middle Eastern leaders. At the same time, it became completely clear that Bashar al-Assad remains in power, as well as the fact that the Kremlin also remains an ally of Syria.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Authoritative American publication "Defense News" in a special issue "Outlook 2018" representing the opinions of world political and military leaders and authorities on the results of 2017 and the prospects for 2018 in military-political relations, also published the opinion of the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (AST Center) Ruslan Pukhov “Moscow-based think tank director: Russia's unexpected military victory in Syria" ("Unexpected Russian military victory in Syria"). We offer the Russian text of the publication.
One of the main events of 2017 was the victory won by the Russian armed forces and the government of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. When Vladimir Putin unexpectedly and decisively intervened in the bloody Syrian civil war in September 2015, many voices in the West, starting with US President Barack Obama, were quite unanimous in predicting that Moscow would become bogged down in the conflict.
A little over two years later, it is already obvious to everyone that no “new Afghanistan” has happened in Syria for Putin. During the intervention, Russia almost completely fulfilled its main tasks in Syria. The military and political situation of the Bashar al-Assad regime, which seemed almost hopeless in the summer of 2015, has radically improved. More than 90 percent of the country's territory is under the control of the Syrian government. The self-proclaimed extremist Islamic State is on the verge of complete extinction. Other radical Islamist groups have been weakened. The more moderate anti-Assad opposition, despite large-scale military assistance from the United States and conservative Arab monarchies, is also significantly weakened, fragmented, militarily isolated and has lost the prospects of victory. The question of the future of President Bashar al-Assad has practically been removed from the Syrian political agenda.
What is striking is not that Russia, through its intervention, achieved a turning point in the civil war in Syria, but rather the limited Russian forces that achieved this. In essence, Russia managed to exclude the use of any significant ground forces and assets of its own and minimize losses. The Russian ground contingent remained insignificant throughout the two-year campaign, not exceeding in total a maximum of several thousand people - including private military companies and military police - of which, apparently, a maximum of several hundred were involved at a time, and with a very limited supply of military equipment. For Russia, this truly became a “cheap war”, including in terms of losses estimated at less than 100 people.
Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (AST Center) Ruslan Pukhov © Defense News
The Russian aviation group in Syria is also small and at different times included only 30 to 50 combat aircraft and 16 to 40 helicopters, but it was involved with very high intensity. By the end of August 2017, Russian aviation in Syria had carried out more than 28 thousand sorties, claiming defeat of about 90 thousand targets, while by that time only one Su-24M aircraft had been lost. It may be recalled that in the Afghan War, one Soviet aircraft was lost on average every 750 sorties. Unmanned aerial vehicles have carried out more than 14 thousand flights in Syria.
There are several features that have contributed to the success of the Russian military campaign in Syria, making the company relatively “cheap”, and contrasting with the not-so-successful American approach in other regions of the world.
Firstly, Russia managed to create a very effective symbiosis of Syrian troops and its own contingent in Syria. The Russians took active measures to restore the combat effectiveness of the Syrian army, and the revived Syrian troops were often “reinforced” by small Russian support and special forces units. More importantly, Russian senior officers were not limited to the role of advisers, but in many key sectors led Syrian troops, which greatly increased the level of command and military expertise. Many of the main groups of Syrian troops are led by generals sent from Russia, and the 5th Volunteer Assault Corps, which acted as the main striking force of the Syrian army in the last year, was completely formed and equipped by Russians and is led by Russian commanders. It may not have been entirely politically correct, but it turned out to be completely effective.
Second, Russia was able to avoid committing significant ground forces of its own by replacing them with private military companies of well-paid mercenaries recruited primarily from retired Russian professional military personnel. Moreover, in contrast to US practice, the detachments of these companies were not used for auxiliary and security purposes, but directly as ground attack units, including for the aforementioned “reinforcement” of the Syrian forces. This proved very successful both from a military and a political point of view, minimizing any political costs of direct intervention. At the same time, Russian society demonstrated complete indifference to information about the losses of these private companies, rightly believing that “these people knew what they were doing for that kind of money.” Thus, contrary to Western expectations, the losses in Syria did not have any negative domestic political effect for the Putin administration.
In the West, surprisingly little attention has so far been paid to the success of the Russian military intervention in Syria and to the aspects of Russian military activity demonstrated thereby. It is clear that for many Western political and military observers, discouraged by unfounded forecasts about Putin getting bogged down in Syria, this topic does not look very attractive. Meanwhile, the military campaign in Syria and victory in it have large-scale consequences for the development of the Russian military machine.
During the relatively short two-year campaign in Syria, almost all senior Russian commanders were rotated through it. According to a statement made in November 2017 by the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, the grouping of troops in Syria with their headquarters “passed through all the commanders of military districts, combined arms armies and air force and air defense armies, almost all division commanders and more than half of the commanders combined arms brigades and regiments" of the Russian Armed Forces. All of these commanders had real-world experience of complex modern warfare in remote terrain, with the enormous role of intense air power and precision weapons, and with large-scale logistics and support challenges.
The phenomenon of such commanders with the experience of a successful and victorious military campaign for Russia in Syria, with a large-scale and decisive role of aviation and the widespread use of special operations forces and modern weapons, can have a significant impact on Russian military development for a long time to come. At the same time, the confidence gained by the Russian military in Syria may contribute to a more firm and interventionist course in Russian foreign and military policy in the future.
Questions remain unanswered about what impact this mission will have on the course of the Syrian war.
American, British and French jets that took off from the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, in France, in the Mediterranean and possibly other bases in the Middle East did not approach Russian and Syrian air defense systems.
The cruise missiles fired by American B1-B Lancer heavy bombers, French Rafale fighters and British GR4 Tornado fighters - as well as from ships in the Mediterranean - were among the most advanced in the world. They have a range of hundreds of kilometers and were specifically designed to be launched from great distances without being threatened by Syrian anti-aircraft missile systems - mostly still Soviet-made.
In just 45 minutes, the Allies fired missiles worth a total of $50 million. But the question remains how effective the strikes, carried out early on Saturday, April 14, were in destroying the Assad regime's chemical weapons. In addition, statements by the Russian military, which claim that Syrian government forces managed to shoot down 71 of more than 100 missiles fired, remain unconfirmed.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon denies this information, insisting that not a single allied missile was intercepted and calling the strikes “precise, devastating and effective.” Its representatives emphasize that the allies managed to successfully hit all targets.
The missiles fired were some of the most advanced missiles in the arsenals of the United States, Britain and France, and included the American JASSM cruise missiles, which some say were the first to be used in combat.
As a show of military power, these strikes were equally staged (the allies warned Russia and, by extension, Syria in advance of the impending strikes, as France admitted) and extremely limited in scope. As a result, most key Syrian government installations remained untouched.
British Prime Minister Theresa May acknowledged this, calling the strikes "limited and targeted" and not aimed at overthrowing Assad or launching a larger intervention.
The Russian military - especially those responsible for the advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems deployed at the Tartus naval base - were warned of the impending strikes. They tracked the attacking missiles, but did not use their systems to shoot them down.
This task would be carried out by Syrian air defense systems, of which the most advanced is the Russian-supplied Pantsir-S1 system, which has anti-missile capabilities and which, according to some reports, Russia may have slightly improved before handing it over to the Syrian army.
Statements about the interception of such a large number of attacking missiles were made by Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy from the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who emphasized that the strikes by the Western allies did not result in casualties and that minimal damage was caused to military facilities of the Syrian regime.
Among the targets was the Barzeh region, located near Damascus, where, according to Western intelligence, chemical weapons are produced. Strikes were also carried out on facilities located near Homs, where, according to some reports, there are warehouses with chemical weapons.
Despite the repeated use of chemical weapons in Syria, the death toll from chemical attacks represents only a tiny fraction of the total number of victims of this war, including those killed by indiscriminate weapons such as barrel bombs.
The main question now is not what damage the Western allies' strikes have done to the Assad regime's remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons, but what Assad's future strategy in this war will be.
Immediately after the strikes, Assad announced that he intended to continue the fight against groups opposing him. It is worth recalling that after a more limited American strike in April 2017, which was supposed to deter Assad from further use of chemical weapons, Syrian troops continued to use chlorine and possibly other chemicals from time to time. Assad vowed to continue to "fight and crush terrorism" in every corner of his country.
An equally serious, although more veiled threat, sounded on the morning of Saturday, April 14, was a warning from Moscow that it would reconsider its decision to supply much more modern S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria and other countries. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to delay the supply of these systems after negotiations with European Union leaders in 2013.
While the delivery of S-300s to Syria is unlikely to result in negative consequences for the US military, their deployment could significantly increase the risks for Israeli fighters, which until recently carried out attacks on targets in Syria with relative impunity.
“Given what happened, we consider it possible to return to consideration of this issue - and not only in relation to Syria, but also to other states,” Rudskoy said.
All of this brings us to the most important unknown in the aftermath of the strikes: what their long-term impact will be in a troubled region as proxy conflicts escalate and military capabilities surge.
These strikes by the Western coalition once again demonstrated that - despite the enormous humanitarian damage caused by the war in Syria - the country has become a testing ground for the latest systems deployed by Russia and the United States.
Trump and Putin are engaged in something of a verbal arms race, with Putin bragging about the supersonic missiles and high-speed submarines he unveiled shortly before the Russian presidential election.
Russia is pursuing an active policy in Syria, taking significant risks.
What are these risks?
The likelihood of spoiling good relations with Turkey, causing it excessive concern; the likelihood of a direct clash with the United States and Israel; the possibility that radicalism, fueled by civilian deaths in airstrikes, will turn into terrorism are the most obvious of these risks.
Along with these risks, it should also be noted that intervention in Syria imposes serious economic costs on Russia and, together with intervention in Ukraine, is one of the reasons for the contraction of the Russian economy that has occurred recently. These costs should be understood as more than just military and economic costs in Syria and Ukraine. The economic sanctions imposed on Moscow by the US and EU due to these interventions are obviously also causing significant harm to the Russian economy.
Okay, but why does Russia endure these costs?
What makes Syria so important to Moscow?
It should be noted that the point is not to keep the Baath regime in Syria on its feet, but to maintain and expand the Russian military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Russia, believing that if the Damascus regime fell, it would lose its influence on Syria, intervened in the civil war in this country and, taking advantage of the lack of reaction from Western countries, primarily the United States, significantly increased the potential of its military presence in Syria. Russia expanded its naval base in Tartus and created an important air base in Khmeimim in the Latakia region. In addition to these permanent bases, Russia also has smaller bases in different parts of the country.
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Sabah 01/04/2019This increased capacity has given Moscow the opportunity to gain influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, which extends far beyond Syria. Russia's increased activity in North Africa should be seen as a reflection of its self-confidence, increased in connection with successes in Syria. With the gradual development of relations with Algeria, and the gradual and increasing intervention in the civil war in Libya, Moscow began to be seen by the el-Sisi regime in Egypt as an alternative player that would weaken the dependence created by the partnership with the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Having become a direct participant in the Syrian civil war since the fall of 2015, Russia has come to the fore as the main force keeping the Assad administration in power. As a result, Moscow's influence on Damascus manifested itself with even greater force than before. This at the same time implies a reduction in the influence of Iran, another country that has very close relations with the Baath administration.
By increasing its influence in Syria, Russia has become a noticeably more active force throughout the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, it cannot be said that Russia’s economic strength allows it to have such influence in these regions. In addition, the economic output of Russia, whose economy is one-thirteenth the size of the American economy and about half that of the French, is largely dependent on energy exports - and this is a separate risk factor.
Russia's influence in Syria, with such limited economic opportunities, comes from the Putin administration's high military capabilities and willingness to take risks. Moscow, which after the wars in Georgia and Ukraine chose to achieve its goals in Syria using military force, took advantage of the fact that the reaction of such global players as the United States, which are capable of containing it, was weak for a long time.
In addition to its willingness to take risks, another factor that has made Russia a powerful force in Syria and beyond is its flexibility to cooperate on a resolution with both Iran, which has similar goals to Russia, and Turkey, which many other goals.
And the third factor that contributed to Russia’s activity in Syria is the presence of an effective decision-making mechanism, unlike the United States. While Putin leads the foreign policy decision-making process, Trump's desire to end the US-DKP/PKK adventure that US military officials dragged Obama into has sparked a major power struggle in Washington.
Unlike the United States, Moscow has placed cooperation with the region's indigenous countries, rather than terrorist organizations, at the center of its policy, and has been perceived by Turkey and Iran—two countries with significant influence over the issue—as a serious partner. And this led to the fact that the Astana process instead of the Geneva process became a truly working process towards resolving the Syrian problem.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Last week, the Russian military brought more than a hundred foreign journalists to Palmyra, including our team from CNN. This trip was intended to show Moscow's role in the liberation of an ancient monument and cultural heritage site, as well as to reveal a lot about the combat potential of the Russian army and the scope of its activities in Syria.
Moving such a large number of people in this war-torn country from a Russian air base in Latakia over a long distance to a place where fighting had recently taken place is a massive operation that requires enormous logistical effort and security measures.
The convoy included five buses filled with journalists, at least eight armored vehicles with heavy machine guns and two combat vehicles. Two attack helicopters were constantly patrolling in the sky above the column. During the trip, which lasted more than six hours, the helicopters were changed several times, and we were able to see all their diversity, starting with the Mi-28 and Ka-52, and ending with the modernized Mi-35. Driving through Syria along its western coast, we saw several bases with Russian helicopters near Homs and in the Palmyra area.
At the end of 2015, Russia sent dozens of attack aircraft and fighter jets to Syria to carry out bombing attacks in support of the troops of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Moscow appears to have deployed several significant ground forces in different parts of Syria. There is no exact information about the number of Russian military personnel in this country, but during the trip it seemed to us that at least several thousand soldiers with modern weapons and infrastructure were concentrated there.
The Khmeimim base on the outskirts of Latakia is located on the coast in the northwest of the country. This is an active Syrian military airfield and a container-type town built by the Russians. The camp is large, modern and in excellent condition.
What is Russia's military arsenal?
During morning exercise, the Russian command allowed us to film some of the servicemen lifting weights, playing volleyball, basketball and boxing. A young lieutenant, who gave only his first name, Vladimir, said the servicemen are very well motivated.
“I’m happy to be serving my country here,” he said.
The professionalism of the troops and the impeccable condition of their military equipment show that the Russian armed forces have done a lot of work since a large-scale modernization program was launched several years ago. In addition to dozens of combat aircraft, Russia has numerous combat helicopters, tanks, armored personnel carriers and anti-aircraft missile systems in Syria.
But the biggest surprise for us was that in other places in Syria we also saw many Russian ground forces units. The army has established a brand new outpost near the ancient city of Palmyra. Officially, this is the base of sappers who, after the liberation of the city from ISIS, neutralized thousands of explosive devices in Palmyra itself and nearby villages.
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18.02.2016Multimedia
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InoSMI 03/28/2016But along with engineering equipment, dozens of combat vehicles and armored personnel carriers could be seen at the base. This equipment may have been deployed there to protect sappers, but Russia has also deployed a modern Pantsir-S1 air defense system in the area, which can launch missiles at enemy aircraft and conduct anti-aircraft artillery fire on them.
The Russian military told CNN that its aircraft select and destroy targets independently, and the Syrian military provides them with only limited information. The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, also says that Moscow has no influence on the choice of targets that hit the Syrian Air Force.
The United States says Russia is moving artillery to the embattled city of Aleppo, raising concerns that the truce will not hold. But the Russians do not confirm this information. If Assad takes control of the entire city of Aleppo, it will be an important victory.
As for the ceasefire in Aleppo, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA, it has been extended there by 48 hours. This statement was made on Monday by the commander of the country's armed forces.
While the exact extent of the Russian military presence in Syria is still unclear, what we saw while at the base suggests that there are more troops there, and they are much more modern than many people think. These soldiers are completely different from the army that is planning to leave Syria in the near future.
