Triumphant rhetoric in the corridors of Washington, DC celebrating the collapse of the Syrian government as a major victory over Russia is both foolish and short-sighted. I will explain.
Let’s start with the situation in Ukraine. There is a growing atmosphere of desperation and panic among Western leaders as they watch Ukraine’s military collapse along the entire front and cast about for a strategy to stave off Ukraine’s defeat. But there is no viable solution. Russian military operations that are closing in on the formerly critical logistics center of Pokrovsk is emblematic of the dire situation confronting the Ukrainians:
The fall of Pokrovsk (Ukrainian name for Krasnoarmeysk – Ed.) under the onslaught of Russian troops will be the biggest setback for Ukraine in recent months and will make it more difficult for Ukraine to overcome difficulties, in while Russian troops apply serious pressure,” CNN reports
Ukrainian soldiers are being depleted at a steady and growing rate — more than 12,000 were killed in the last week alone. Ukrainian demographics provide no viable solution for producing men capable of fighting and replacing those lost.
Simplicius, citing a recent BBC report, describes the dilemma:
The problem is, a new BBC piece laid out a devastating data point: that Ukraine actually has very few under-25s due to the fact that the 90s saw a sharp decrease in birthrates. We’ve covered this before here, but essentially it means the cohort of males born from the mid to late 90s onward is very small compared to the older groups.
Even if Ukraine had a viable pool of potential reserves, it does not have the infrastructure and time required to effectively train new recruits — i.e., before new soldiers should be sent to the front, they ought to have at least six months of training under their belts. The graphic above, which mirrors an hour-glass, is an apt metaphor — Ukraine’s manpower is disappearing at a steady rate and there is no way to reverse the trend.
Turning to the situation in Syria. With each passing day I’m more convinced that Putin had good intel on the Western plan to take out Assad and, based on intel provided in part from China, correctly assessed that in light of Assad’s refusal to listen to Russian and Iranian advice that Turkey and the West were going to create for themselves a shit sandwich. Neither was prepared to deal with the consequences of a rapid collapse of Syria. I believe that Putin correctly calculated that the West and Turkey were creating a level of chaos in Syria it could neither control nor contain. While Russia could have intervened militarily and defeated HTS and its Turkish/Western backers, Putin and his advisors believed this would ultimately turn out to be a nightmare for Turkey and the West, and Russia was happy to let them eat it.
I asked a good friend and expert on the region if my assessment is off base? He replied:
Yes, broadly that is right. Russia knew that Assad had become convinced that he could normalise with US by drawing closer to Saudi and UAE, whilst Syria was sunk into despairing frustration as its leadership and the army became corrupt, bought and incompetent. Still, Russia is amazed at Turkish blatant lying, double dealing and naivety. Turkey thought it could control via a small group, 15,000 strong umbrella organisation led by Jolani. Russia understood that Syria was far too polarised and suspicious for that.
Russia was not going to allow itself to be bled dry, as in Afghanistan, as Erdogan ripped up the Map. The US and Israel broke the unstable stability. They must pay. Erdogan has released the demons of Turkish/Ottoman exceptionalism in tacit complicity with Israeli eschatological ambition. It will be a mess.
Reports have surfaced this weekend that Syrian intelligence was collaborating with Mossad during the past year, providing information on the movements and locations of senior IRGC commanders, which Israel used to launch assassination attacks. If true, this provides a missing piece to the puzzle of the rapid implosion of the Syrian government and explains why Iran did not enter the fray to help Assad fend off the Turkish-backed jihadis.
Reprinted with permission from Sonar21.com.
