Jura The idiot
General
the group looks pretty international to meYou do the French stuff now
which is:but miss the SSN
ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
kwaigonegin
Colonel
You're thinking too deep lol like I said defeating ISIS is very easy. What makes it hard is the political ramifications and the consequences of such actions. I refused to believe that a multi trillion dollar military CANNOT defeat a terrorist group.
That was what I meant. Perhaps I didn't articulate well enough.
Strange in more with the refueling pod !
And explanations ( tweet of somebody well informed ) a refueling problem ans fighters used Akrotiri for land.
Navy confirm also 10/15 sorties a dayfrom the De Gaulle in general flight of 4 Rafale with 4 LGB each with in more sometimes Super Etendard and E-2C sorties for Tact Coordination.
Same number as Arromanches 1 ( 01-04/2015 ) now Arromanches 2 Can support up to 80 for a day i am a little disapointed i must confess
A NATO TF, mainly French, this navies are very used to do this together.
For SSN guess, hehe
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Jura The idiot
General
concerns fights south of Aleppo: Saturday at 10:40 AM
and some more now, because of:
I haven't yet seen this type of information made public.
Jura The idiot
General
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think this where we will have to disagree. I think its less to do with political ramifications (why even bother being involved in the fight at all if you are so worried about annoying key "allies"?) and more to do with cost. And I am not talking about the monetary costs.
I have amended your quote above.
That is where I think the fundamental problem is.
Pretty much everyone and his dog knows you cannot hold ground with air power, and without being able to take and hold ground, you simply cannot win on the ground short of glassing the whole place with nukes.
Hell, even then you will probably have pockets remaining hidden in some hole, and that you will have to send someone down that hole after them with a gun to truly root them out.
The whole farce about trying to create and arm "moderate rebels" but ending up arming ISIS instead is the direct result of western reluctance to send their own troops in on the ground to engage ISIS and destroy them, so they tried to outsource that dying to the locals. Problem being the ones fanatical enough to want to die for the cause plays for the other side.
Not being willing to work with Assad is down to the political considerations you have mentioned, but it would have been perfectly feasible to go in and take him out as well as ISIS had the West been willing to pay the butcher's bill for such an outcome.
As such, I would characterise the west's military failings against ISIS as one down to a lack of will and belief - the West believes in, and wants their claimed objectives enough to kill for them, but not enough to die for them.
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
First, The Self proclaimed Caliphate is a insurgency not a pure terrorist group, there operations in Syria amount to a hybrid they operate like the mafia feeding off "taxes" which are more in the line of protection money. They operate in extensively rooted manor with the civilian population this limits the capacity of airstrikes as strikes against value targets are likely to be in densely populated areas. Farther hampering operations is that the US and European countries are not in a political mode to allow extensive use of there military forces. Well the indigenous forces are divided between missions. Syrian regime forces are responsible only to the regime. As such even if the Caliphate is defeated by them the war will continue as the deep seeded root causes will remain.
The FSA is limited by the levels of infiltration by AQ and IS elements rendering them as at best unreliable. Farther by being anti Regime is fundamentally unable to work with the Regime. Farther more the Russians have set to bombing them in order to strengthen the Regime. As Russia has now established a foot hold in the conflict and power hold in the planning and operations management they will never allow open support for FSA groups.
The Kurds are a workable but they are divided between two main factions but both are set for the defense not offensive operations.
The Iranians and there groups are a unified and organized force sure, but many are internationally recognized terrorists groups backed and organized by Iran. That makes them no goes for the US and European powers as allies.
The Russians have been fairly successful vs the US in this because of two factors. 1 they are more willing to operate in closer hand to there objectives via both use of helicopters and a larger willingness to accept collateral damage.
2 They are operating with a ground force that is able to follow up.
3 clear cut goals. They want to back and secure the regime, anyone else is a target.
The FSA is limited by the levels of infiltration by AQ and IS elements rendering them as at best unreliable. Farther by being anti Regime is fundamentally unable to work with the Regime. Farther more the Russians have set to bombing them in order to strengthen the Regime. As Russia has now established a foot hold in the conflict and power hold in the planning and operations management they will never allow open support for FSA groups.
The Kurds are a workable but they are divided between two main factions but both are set for the defense not offensive operations.
The Iranians and there groups are a unified and organized force sure, but many are internationally recognized terrorists groups backed and organized by Iran. That makes them no goes for the US and European powers as allies.
The Russians have been fairly successful vs the US in this because of two factors. 1 they are more willing to operate in closer hand to there objectives via both use of helicopters and a larger willingness to accept collateral damage.
2 They are operating with a ground force that is able to follow up.
3 clear cut goals. They want to back and secure the regime, anyone else is a target.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I think this where we will have to disagree. I think its less to do with political ramifications (why even bother being involved in the fight at all if you are so worried about annoying key "allies"?) and more to do with cost. And I am not talking about the monetary costs.
I have amended your quote above.
That is where I think the fundamental problem is.
Pretty much everyone and his dog knows you cannot hold ground with air power, and without being able to take and hold ground, you simply cannot win on the ground short of glassing the whole place with nukes.
Hell, even then you will probably have pockets remaining hidden in some hole, and that you will have to send someone down that hole after them with a gun to truly root them out.
The whole farce about trying to create and arm "moderate rebels" but ending up arming ISIS instead is the direct result of western reluctance to send their own troops in on the ground to engage ISIS and destroy them, so they tried to outsource that dying to the locals. Problem being the ones fanatical enough to want to die for the cause plays for the other side.
Not being willing to work with Assad is down to the political considerations you have mentioned, but it would have been perfectly feasible to go in and take him out as well as ISIS had the West been willing to pay the butcher's bill for such an outcome.
As such, I would characterise the west's military failings against ISIS as one down to a lack of will and belief - the West believes in, and wants their claimed objectives enough to kill for them, but not enough to die for them.
Agreed. I was saying the same thing just kept it at a higher level while you went into details. American blood = political ramifications among other things.
The American public has also lost the appetite for a long drawn out war with no end in sight. Defeating ISIS can only be achieve with Assad's or Syrian army. Any other option will either be ineffective or foster an environment for a power vacuum afterwards. Give Syria back to the Syrian people and not to some other external parties with vested interest be it actual nation states or another yet to be form group ( Muslim brotherhood v2, ISIS v2 etc). If they want Assad or someone else in charge afterward let them be.
The American public unfortunately is quite ignorant and naive of what is happening and to make matters worse the politicians are doing a very lousy job of explaining it to them. Heck most people couldn't even point Syria on a map and has zero clue the fundamental differences with Sunnis, Shias etc. Just a couple days ago I met someone who thought ISIS, AQ etc are Shias but at least he knew enough to even say the word Shia lol. I then asked him about DAESH and he said he has never heard of that word before.
