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Is There A New U.S. Syria Policy? Is There One At All?
What does the U.S. administration want with regards to Syria?
The elements were clear just a few days ago. The U.S. would split off the east and set up a Kurdish enclave which it would then occupy with the help of proxy forces. It would use the leverage to push for political regime change in western Syria. Israel would occupy another piece of the Golan.
While that looked somewhat favorable for the U.S. in the short term it was bad long term strategy. U.S. forces in the east would be surrounded by hostiles, cut off from the sea and under permanent guerilla attack from various opposing forces. But it looked at least like a viable short term way forward.
The new strategy, which may not be one at all, and the new U.S. commitment is all over the place:
As various officials have described it, the United States will intervene only when chemical weapons are used — or any time innocents are killed. It will push for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria — or pursue that only after defeating the Islamic State. America’s national interest in Syria is to fight terrorism. Or to ease the humanitarian crisis there. Or to restore stability.
I don't get it. The cacophony of the last days does not make any sense. There is no viable endgame I see here that would be advantageous for Trump or general U.S. borg policy – neither internationally nor domestically – neither short term nor long term. Trump is now losing the "America First" followers he will need to win another election.
Due to the anti-Russian panic Trump surrendered to the neocons. Suddenly the borg is lauding him for a senseless escalation. The neocons want chaos but chaos is not a plan. There seems to be no plan that will help any cause.
There is no chance that the U.S. can split Syria from its allies, Hizbullah, Iran and Russia. While Russia is under pressure in Kaliningrad, Crimea and Syria it has lived through way worse situation and these have always increased its determination. I don't see how or why it would fold now.
Trump had an intelligent strategy when he won against Clinton. He deftly use his advantages. There are few advantages that he has and can play with regards to Middle East policy. Use pure military force? That's not a strategy, just tactical game play. Though the generals who run his cabinet may not be capable to see that. If he destroys Syrian then Lebanon and Jordan will also fall to radicals. Other countries will follow. Iraq would again throw out all U.S. troops. Would the U.S., or Israel, want that? Why?
Whatever one might say about Trump, he is not stupid. He must have some kind of plan.
Help me out. What are his thoughts behind this. Or are there really none at all.
@ Posted by: Peter AU | Apr 12, 2017 7:05:11 AM | 212
They will be leading the world in technology and innovation – including military tech -, manufacturing, economy. China will have surpassed the US in every way.
Unquestionably, and in a number of respects already has, where it matters. China is spending $400Billion USD on large scale renewable projects (Solar/Wind/Hydro/Thermal) in only the next 2.5 years, the equivalent of it’s entire Annual Defense budget bianually, so it can rapidly de-commission coal power plants and offset strategic dependency on Oil/Gas imports.
Years ago visited numerous remote villages/small townships in regional areas that were entirely self-sufficient thru community scale Solar/Wind Hybrid/storage systems, including hot water/heating and battery backup/fail-over standby storage … domestic cost was peanuts. China now owns and operates 5 of the 6 major & leading renewable energy manufacturing/corporations in the world, IIRC.
The stink-tank goals have always been there, endlessly regurgitated and rehashed again and again from one administration to the next. War with China is a prelude to a World wide economic depression that would make the 30’s look like a walk in the park, IMV. Why has it not been done since ’49, NK ’53, Russia 1917, Cuba ’62, and so on ?
When Nixon, Tricky Dicky, was on occasion drunk and deranged and openly threatening to Nuke Nth Vietnam & China, the officer assigned to the ‘Football’ was ordered to be ‘scarce’ and the JCS & Operations officers issued instructions to carry out any Presidential directives as if they were actual ‘snails’, until he sobered up … and that included such moral & principled handlers such as the war criminal Kissinger! … over what was at the time referred to as only commie gooks 7 chinks, ‘others’. (can provide the open source references if anyone is interested.)
The capabilities have atrophied, overwhelming superiority has been lost, and the adversaries have passed beyond being defenseless potential victims. And largely due the reactions to the ‘Rogue’ conduct re 2001/2003 Afghan/Iraq. Cannot see it happening. And, IF it somehow did go ahead, as speculated, a single toss of the dice, risk it all on win or lose, to obtain hegemony of all of Terra … well, say hello to almost inevitable immediate mutual mandatory reactionary escalation and subsequent MAD … duck & cover, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
2017 is not ’45, nor ’62, etc. Lived and served thru the 60’s to 90’s, as have others, and the greater risk is not an actual direct attack, but a miscalculation/accident/misunderstanding when at sustained toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball, that inadvertantly instantly goes to shit, IMV.
The materiel/logistical key indicators with unavoidable lead times of min ~3-6 months, once such a strategic decision has been made and formally committed to, do not exist, yet.
Posted by: Outraged | Apr 12 2017 11:52 utc | 221
@248 or,
from your link
In July 2006, former defence officials Ashton Carter and William Perry suggested that the US could prevent further missile tests and send a strong message to the North Korean leadership by surgically attacking the country’s missile launch platforms. Such proposals have never been followed through: the assumption North Korea would not retaliate is a high-risk bet.
Targeting missile facilities is one thing. Bombing North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure is a different proposition. For surgical air strikes to be successful, the US needs to be sure the most critical sites have been destroyed.
the fools in ac/dc know nothing about war …
Bruce Cumings, The Korean War, a history
After much experimentation and scientific study by Germany, Britain, and the United States, by 1943 it became clear that “a city was easier to burn down than to blow up.”
…
Top air force officers decided to repeat “the fire” in Korea, a wildly disproportionate scheme in that North Korea had no pretense or possibility of a similar city-busting capability. Whereas German fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries made these allied bombing runs harrowing, with high loss of life among British and American pilots and crew, American pilots had virtual free-fire zones until later in the war, when formidable Soviet MIGs were deployed. Curtis LeMay subsequently said that he had wanted to burn down North Korea’s big cities at the inception of the war, but the Pentagon refused – “it’s too horrible.” So over a period of three years, he went on,
“We burned down every [sic] town in North Korea and South Korea, too .… Now, over a period of three years this is palatable, but to kill a few people to stop this from happening – a lot of people can’t stomach it.”[4]
To take just one example of these “limited” raids, on July 11, 1952, an “all-out assault” on Pyongyang involved 1,254 air sorties by day and 54 B-29 assaults by night, the prelude to bombing thirty other cities and industrial objectives under “operation PRESSURE PUMP.”
Highly concentrated incendiary bombs were followed up with delayed demolition explosives.
By 1968 the Dow Chemical Company, a major manufacturer of napalm, could not enter most college campuses to recruit employees because of napalm’s use in Vietnam, but oceans of it were dropped on Korea silently or without notice in America, with much more devastating effect, since the DPRK had many more populous cities and urban industrial installations than did Vietnam. Furthermore, the U.S. Air Force loved this infernal jelly, its “wonder weapon,” as attested to by many articles in “trade” journals of the time.* One day Pfc. James Ransome, Jr.’s unit suffered a “friendly” hit of this wonder weapon: his men rolled in the snow in agony and begged him to shoot them, as their skin burned to a crisp and peeled back “like fried potato chips.” Reporters saw case after case of civilians drenched in napalm – the whole body “covered with a hard, black crust sprinkled with yellow pus.”[5]
Korea recapitulated the air force’s mantra from World War II, that firebombing would erode enemy morale and end the war sooner, but the interior intent was to destroy Korean society down to the individual constituent: General Ridgway, who at times deplored the free-fire zones he saw, nonetheless wanted bigger and better napalm bombs (thousand-pound versions to be dropped from B-29s) in early 1951, thus to “wipe out all life in tactical locality and save the lives of our soldiers.”
“If we keep on tearing the place apart,” Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett said, “we can make it a most unpopular affair for the North Koreans. We ought to go right ahead.” (Lovett had advised in 1944 that the Royal Air Force had no restrictions on attacks against enemy territory, so the American bombers should “wipe out the town as the RAF does.”)[6]
[4] Princeton University, J.F. Dulles Papers, Curtis LeMay oral history, April 28, 1966. South Korean cities were bombed only when North Koreans or Chinese occupied them, and the destruction was much less than in the North. On the bombing as a war crime, see Walzer (1992), 155–56.
[5] Crane, Conrad C. (2000). American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 32–33, 66– 68, 122–25, 133; Knox, Donald (1985). The Korean War: Pusan to Chosin – An Oral History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 552.
[6] Lovett in Truman Library, Connelly Papers, “Notes on Cabinet Meetings,” Sept. 12, 1952.
…
Air force plans for attacks on North Korea’s large dams originally envisioned hitting twenty of them, thus to destroy 250,000 tons of rice that would soon be harvested. In the event, bombers hit three dams in mid-May 1953, just as the rice was newly planted: Toksan, Chasan, and Kuwonga; shortly thereafter two more were attacked, at Namsi and Taechon. These are usually called “irrigation dams” in the literature, but they were major dams akin to many large dams in the United States. The great Suiho Dam on the Yalu River was second in the world only to Hoover Dam, and was first bombed in May 1952 (although never demolished, for fear of provoking Beijing and Moscow). The Pujon River dam was designed to hold 670 million cubic meters of water, and had a pressure gradient of 999 meters; the dam’s power station generated 200,000 kilowatts from the water. [10] According to the official U.S. Air Force history, when fifty-nine F-84 Thunderjets breached the high containing wall of Toksan on May 13, 1953, the onrushing flood destroyed six miles of railway, five bridges, two miles of highway, and five square miles of rice paddies. The first breach at Toksan “scooped clean” twenty-seven miles of river valley, and sent water rushing even into Pyongyang. After the war it took 200,000 man-days of labor to reconstruct the reservoir. But as with so many aspects of the war, no one seemed to notice back home: only the very fine print of New York Times daily war reports mentioned the dam hits, with no commentary.[11]
[11] Crane (2000), 160–64.
the koreans and the chinese know far too much about war … vicious fools like donald trump may dare the gods to avenge their victims – while there are no gods to do so, there are the chinese. the usa attacking north korea would be like the chinese attacking tamaulipas or the yucatan. it would be crystal clear to the chinese that they were next. their response would follow as night follows day. the us fleet and all aboard would be at the bottom of the yellow sea before they’d fired their last cruise missile.
Posted by: jfl | Apr 13 2017 3:49 utc | 251
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