ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

I can think of two good reasons and these apply not simply to Syria, but to the Levant as well.

1) Removal of dangerous militants originating from China, who could later cause trouble either in China or in Central Asia and disrupt Chinese economic/infrastructure plans.

2) The Levant is itself a critical region to be traversed for the Africa bound arm of the OBOR project. It needs to be stabilised and receptive for the project to proceed through there.

Also just because you do not see tanks, ships or aircraft, does not mean that China is not already heavily engaged in the situation. Just as critical are Diplomatic efforts in the region, money and intelligence to ease and help the war effort. I suspect China is already very involved at such levels.

Indeed, ISIS and the chaos they are causing in the ME is a massive roadblock to the Silk Road 2.0 (SR2.0) vision China has for a connected Eurasian continent, and would have to be dealt with eventually if China ever wishes to establish overland direct links to Europe and the Middle East and beyond.

However, since China is only just starting this project, it will probably be a decade or two at least before ISIS becomes a real imminent problem.

I think at present, the Chinese prefer to keep biding their time while building their strengths and develop the most Eastern leg of the project.

In the meantime, I think China is keen to keep a low profile so as not to needlessly alienate either side, while providing Russia with as much back channel support as they can in exchange for Uighur terrorists getting preferential treatment on Russia's "to bomb" list.

China will prefer to have someone else destroy ISIS before their SR2.0 comes close enough for them to be a security concern. But if ISIS does survive until that stage, China will probably enter the fray. Only by then, the Chinese economy should be far stronger, its military modernisation should be most complete, and it should have bases in the region well established with direct overland high speed rail linkage to China itself.

That means the logistics of the operation is going to be vastly better for China, and costs correspondingly lower, while the Chinese economy would be better placed to absorb the costs of such a war with minimal impact.

delft said:

I read yesterday ( where? ) that such a convoy nearing Hama (?) was attacked and destroyed by the Russian air force with the death of forty fighters and the wounding of many more. I'll try to find it.

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I searched Internet using google for what you said you had read; the closest seems to be

Syria airstrike on IS convoy kills 40 militants

Air raids on an

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convoy has killed at least 40 fighters in central Syria during the weekend ...

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etc. (but of course I wouldn't know what you read

I skim the official Russian reports of air-strikes, at a Russian blogsite though; from this weekend:


but I didn't notice attacks against moving targets, that's why I asked here

Jura said:

I searched Internet using google for what you said you had read; the closest seems to be

Syria airstrike on IS convoy kills 40 militants

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

etc. (but of course I wouldn't know what you read

I skim the official Russian reports of air-strikes, at a Russian blogsite though; from this weekend:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

but I didn't notice attacks against moving targets, that's why I asked here

Click to expand...

That must be the occasion. I didn't see this website but the forty mentioned corresponds. Are the Russians to busy attacking already programmed targets that they don't have time for such a convoy?

delft said:

... Are the Russians to busy attacking already programmed targets that they don't have time for such a convoy?

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good question for

Brumby said:

What would be the compelling reason(s) for China to get involved in such a quagmire? I can understand with Russia in propping up the Assad regime but what is it in for China? It doesn't make sense.

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There is no reason why this should be a quagmire, but then there never is.
The investments by China in Iran and Iraq will be much less valuable as long as ISIL exists. Syria will soon have suppressed the lesser terrorists sufficiently in its Western parts to take on ISIL. That is the time to resume large scale offensives in Iraq with Iranian support. The Iranian air force is well maintained but old. US air support has been not very effective. Russian air support from Syria would be less effective than from Iran, would however be seen as a provocation towards US. So there might be a place for China.
Under such an assault ISIL is likely to survive much shorter that Libya under NATO assault. US would effectively been driven out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia would best serve its interest by maintaining even closer diplomatic relations with China and Russia than already exist.

interestingly, today

denied what had been reported by certain media, which was Saudi Arabia allegedly offered Russia $300b for stopping the support of Mr. Assad

Emerged speculation that the UAV has crashed in Turkey's border with Syria, despite the Turkish government claim that was shot down by an F-16, is of Chinese origin. The EWATT EWZ-II is a UAV of civil origin and can be purchased by anyone on the internet. The same drone was found in Ukraine.






Ps:A few days ago a Russian drone Orlan-10 crashed near the Syrian city of Aleppo

delft said:

The investments by China in Iran and Iraq will be much less valuable as long as ISIL exists. Syria will soon have suppressed the lesser terrorists sufficiently in its Western parts to take on ISIL. That is the time to resume large scale offensives in Iraq with Iranian support. The Iranian air force is well maintained but old. US air support has been not very effective. Russian air support from Syria would be less effective than from Iran, would however be seen as a provocation towards US. So there might be a place for China.

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Are you suggesting some kind of military insertion and action by China in Iraq rather than Syria? A compelling reason in my mind is that any contemplated military action would result in better outcome than maintaining status quo relative to the risk of involvement. In other words, it is always about weighing course of action relative to desire outcome. Why do you think that China would be more effective against ISIL relative to US military actions to-date? What would be different that China would do to produce a different set of outcome?