In this day and age, why do you need a base in Syria to support bases in Africa? You have cargo planes and ships to send supplies. The hyperbole that I am seeing about the loss of Russian influence is a bit sad. No its not going to be that bad. Plenty of countries in the middle east that might agree to host the Russians if they wanted it to badly.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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What other warm water port in Africa are they going to use? Flying direct to Africa will be much more expensive for the Russians and is African influence really worth the additional costs considering how much they've already sunk into Ukraine?
Exactly 10 years ago it was believed Russia lost Ukraine, 10 years later Ukraine lost most of its male population and likely soon its statehood. History never ends.
Turkey backed HTS isn't friendly with US backed Kurish SDF, to put it mildly, and SDF control oilfields. The civil war is just getting started, both Russia and Iran had no issue helping SDF in the past and Trump has no desire to help SDF. Most of geopolitics happen under the surface.
Also are people just going to ignore Russia now have much closer alliance with China and Iran? Through Iran there is Iraq, and through China there is economic security. Compare to that what did NATO get out of Ukraine and Syria so far?
Maybe the west should use that financial power to solve their own cost of living, debt and budget crisis that turning themselves into the Syria right now. Real economic power comes from wealth creation, not finance, real economic dominance is precisely what Russia and China is winning with right now, Trump is in power because the west is suffering from sanctions, Trump abandoning allies is the result of Chinese and Russian sanctions working. Sanctions don't have to be announced for it to have an effect.
Assad's regime was under no sanctions.
Unless you count them militarily losing their most productive regions as sanctions.
Until the very end, Syria had normal-ish trade and gdp per capita for a country that's been like 12 years at war.
The problem was that Assad didn't motivate the people correctly. It turns out in a society where you can find 1000s upon 1000s of neck chopping enthusiasts, moderate baathism flies over the heads of the majority. And when you couple incompetent charisma with poor administration efficiency, then you have neither foundations nor fluff. If Assad had either administration skills or religious fervor, it is likely the country would at least be united, through how prosperous it is would be another question.
I too was blinded by the memes and believed that Assad was the best solution, the one that needed to be imposed on Syria by any means.
Many thought Afghanistan retreat could only happen to a rotten and evil empire, not the forces of good. But it turns out everywhere is the same if you don't carefully stake out the wishes of the locals. Syria, like Afghanistan and the Shah even longer ago, was not lost in battle, but through political manuevering. The patience of Turkey has given them the largest slice in the ongoing negotiation.
Luckily, China has not directly involved itself, and hence the approach to the new situation will not necessarily be difficult. The advantage of the two force structure between Russia and China is that there is a capability to act as good and bad cop.
America's 1st priority is Israel. it's 2nd priority is Israel. it's 3rd priority is Israel. it's 4th priority is Israel & it's 5th priority is Israel and so on.. Europe and western pacific come after that but only as long as it doesn't affect their commitment to God's chosen people.
the entire world & not just China in the western pacific can pose all sorts of geopoltical challenges to the US & the US would still never lose focus on making Israel it's top priority.
so unfortunately no. the middle east is by far the biggest priority for America and that is because Israel exists in the middle east. that is why the US keeps on talking about how they need to pivot to Asia yet whenever Israel is in trouble the US just forgets that the world even exists and they just start pouring all their resources in Israel. and that is why China was given such a long time of peace to build itself up because Israel exists in the middle east not in the western pacific.
This is complete nonsense.
My friend, China is not the world's policeman and I don't think it will even do the job that the US has accepted, because they are essentially a bunch of arrogant people who think they can do this forever, when the inherent problems clearly demonstrate that they cannot and do not have the capacity to do so.
Just to give you an idea of the absurdity of what we are currently witnessing, Lloyd Austin said today: 'American leadership is what holds the world together'
The US Secretary of Defense made the controversial statement when announcing Washington's 22nd military aid package for Ukraine, worth almost $1 billion. Austin added that the total value of US security assistance committed to Ukraine since February 2022 has already exceeded $62 billion.
"The world built by American leadership can only be held together by American leadership," he said, without showing any sign of irony.
There is a reason the PLA focuses primarily on MOOTW, with the Chinese military describing MOOTW as non-war military activities – peacekeeping missions, disaster relief, anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, counter-terrorism, regional military medical support, and domestic security for major events – all of which are about building .
While China is already creating enemies even with this stance, the PLA’s intervention to defend allies in order to expand its military sphere of influence will give even more ammunition to anti-China agitators to spew their criticisms against the PRC.
If China were to become more assertive militarily in the world, such as by intervening in Myanmar, supporting the Maoist militias in Shan Province against the PDF and the military junta, sending PLAAF squadrons to bomb strategic points and military bases, and using the PLAGF to train rebel troops while providing logistical support through Yunnan, or by playing a more active role in Central Asia, using the PLAGF to support the regimes in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, and involving the PAP in multilateral or bilateral counterterrorism exercises targeting Islamist groups such as ISIS-K and the TIP, it would not only upset its enemies, but could even go so far as to upset Tehran and Moscow. This would clearly have repercussions in China's strategic environment, even if the PLA were to intervene in Syria or Venezuela.
Yeah unless you count losing their most productive and oil producing region to foreign occupation, just a minor detail.
There is no such thing as willing wealth into existing, it takes stability then time, especially without oil to smooth things.
Assad's mistake is to not finish the job and freeze the war. There are no stability with a frozen war, without stability there won't be any investment, and without oil you need investment in other industries or there's just no income. Maybe he thought he can pull a PRC and ROC move, but ROC is far smaller than PRC, and even then it took winning the Korean War to establish stability.