"Russian Moves in Syria Pose Concerns for U.S." NY times

"Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and is taking other steps the United States fears may signal that President Vladimir V. Putin is planning to vastly expand his military support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, administration officials said Friday.

The Russian moves, including the recent transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield and the delivery of a portable air traffic control station there, are another complicating factor in Secretary of State John Kerry’s repeated efforts to enlist Mr. Putin’s support for a diplomatic solution to the bloody conflict in Syria.

The Russians have also filed military overflight requests with neighboring countries through September.    

American officials acknowledge that they are not certain of Russia’s intentions, but some say the temporary housing suggests that Russia could deploy as many as 1,000 advisers or other military personnel to the airfield near the Assad family’s ancestral home. The airfield serves Latakia, Syria’s principal port city.                                                                                        

Other American officials say they see no indication that Russia intends to deploy significant numbers of ground forces, but they say the housing would enable Russia to use the airfield as a major hub for ferrying in military supplies for the Syrian government, or possibly as a launching pad for Russian airstrikes in support of Mr. Assad’s forces.

American intelligence analysts are also looking at ship loadings in Russia to determine what might be bound for Syria, and one official speculated that the Russian deployment might eventually grow to 2,000 to 3,000 personnel."  NY Times

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It pains me to find something good in Michael Gordon's work but this is a thorough article.  Perhaps Eric Schmitt is responsible. 

IMO, for these two journos to have this much input from US officials means that the US Government is "softening the blow" for the American people in anticipation of an unannounced accommodation with Russia over this and perhaps even acquiescence in the Russian policy determination that the Syrian government should not disappear and then be replaced by God knows what.

Putin's statement at Vladivostok should not be interpreted as a definitive nyet!  The Russians are masters of the art of disinformation and misdirection to cover their actions and plans.

It seems clear that Russia's plan is to sufficiently reinforce the Syrian government to enable negotiations with the more "healthy" rebel groups so as to create a Syrian base for a coalition struggle against the jihadis.  Turkey's actual allegiances make such a process problematic. 

"Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who now studies Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that Mr. Putin’s intentions were clear. 'All this tells me is that the Russians are not backing away from the Assad regime,' he said."  NY Times

You got that right, Jeff.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/world/middleeast/russian-moves-in-syria-pose-concerns-for-us.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-is-upping-military-intervention-in-syria-2015-9 

Comments

[annamaria]

Correct. The invoice for the refugees crisis must be sent to the US State Dept. and AIPAC.
Surprisingly, Reuters printed this simple summary of the Middle East crisis: "A senior Russian diplomatic source said: "Proposals by our [US] partners for the change of regime in Damascus are illegitimate. They only say Assad must go - and then what? I don't think they have any idea. There used to be no terrorists in Iraq, the same in Libya. And now the Libyan state has fallen apart and the terrorists are roaming there."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/06/us-mideast-crisis-syria-assad-insight-idUSKCN0R609B20150906
The summary shows the US foreign office (and the neocon crowd at large) as a bunch of complete idiots unable to see a step ahead.
By the way, where is the "only democracy in the Middle East" during this horrific humanitarian crisis and where are the Israel's alleged humanitarian inclinations re the dying Syrian children? Are the "chosen" happy to see the "pruning?"

[annamaria]

thank you, dear Babak. You are right on all points. The question is, what kind of stupendous stupidity has allowed to initiate and accomplish this thorough inflammation in the Middle East, which is now threatening the existence of cultural heritage of the Old Europe? There is no doubts that the arsonists (and their progeny) are going to meet the results of their deeds personally.
Unfortunately, many innocents have been suffering as well.

[annamaria]

The "mutual group hostilities" are not Middle East specific. Moreover, the flames of war have been fanned by infusion of advanced weaponry, which greatly increased the scale and geography of group hostilities.

[bth]

b, also there is the UN sending texts to hundreds of thousands of refugees telling them that their food rations are about to be eliminated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/un-notifies-over-200000-syrian-refugees-via-text-that-food-aids-getting-cut-completely_55e9f7bae4b002d5c07609df

[bth]

PL would you see Damascus then being particularly targeted by Saudi's Sunni Arab friends?

[bth]

Wouldn't you expect Erdogan to try to push the refugees into the Syrian No Fly border zone he wants to create just before the November 1 elections in Turkey?

[MartinJ]

All.

Movement of refugees is a far more complex issue than can be characterised as the Turks pushing them to move from there to Europe. Many of those now passing through Turkey are Christians and Kurds. Why should they want to stay in Turkey? Why would anyone in fact? A place where for the most part there are no jobs available.

Also many Syrians first move to Jordan before heading back into Syria to go Turkey and thence to western Europe. There are no jobs for them in Jordan to do and they certainly can't get into Saudi Arabia.

The pull factors of freedom and economic opportunity is what brings them to Europe as well as the push factor of survival.

[Tidewater]

Tidewater to All,

What about Cyprus? Russia makes a knight's move. The move is designed to land on Cyprus. Hops over to Syria, doubling down, to protect Tartus. Keeping its position in Syria, which is at risk, it continues, as an Orthodox people, to develop closer ties with the Orthodox people of Greece, and the Orthodox Greeks on their half of Cyprus. Turkey continues to obstruct Cyprus from developing its offshore oil and LNG fields in the coastal waters off of Greek held territory. Suppose instead of simply granting the Russian navy the right to use Cypriot ports as has already been agreed upon, Cyprus gave Russia a lease and rights to build a major military base at, say,Limassol. And protective Russia puts the pressure on Turkey to accomodate Greek/Russian oil and gas exploration. And they make a huge strike.

Particularly, this scenario anticipates that Germany will kick Greece out of the European Community. Surely that is coming soon enough. The Cyprus Republic is a member of the EU but not a member of NATO. After Greece is on its own and very desperate indeed, the bonds between these three Orthodox countries become much stronger. With the hope of that big LNG discovery.

Think of it. Russian subs on a steady cycle of short patrols in the Mediterranean sending the warning to the entire region of a few minute impact time from undersea light-off. How many seconds to Tel Aviv? To Brussels? Or the nuclear reactors at, say, Flamanville?

I think Russia has some very good moves to make in the Mediterranean, but its real interest is in the Arctic.

The process of Dead Reckoning is tedious and tense making. Using compass bearings and speed estimates one constantly tries to keep track of one's location, say in the Bay of Fundy sailing a box in an ongoing twenty knot wind and dense fog. Think of Dead Reckoning as a metaphor for monitoring climate change. When does the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reach 450 parts per million? When Dead Reckoning tells you that that moment has arrived the results will be very visible. Heat. Permanent drought. Vast acreage (including eventually the French Midi) turning brown. Consider Sanaa. This is one of the world's large cities that will be the first to have no water at all. This within two years. The terroir of certain famous French wines is already going all wrong.

If 450 ppm comes within five years you will have seen by then desperate, widespread migration out of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Including Israel.

[turcopolier]

tidewater
Retired? Got a lot of time on your hands? Russia wants to stabilize the Levant not to play games. pl

[turcopolier]

bth

Why would Erdogen push the refugees into the line of fire. The refugees y don't have the franchise in turkey. Damascus is already the major objective for Sunni rebels. pl

[turcopolier]

Annamarina

Oh, BS. We are talking about the ME not some other region. This sounds like Rousseau. "Man is born free and is everywhere in chains." Baloney. The same groups of people used to kill and oppress each other using swords and battle axes. it was just more of a retain process. pl

[bth]

I'm not sure. I think a financial breaking point will occur in Turkey this winter. Currency collapse happening now. Elections Nov. 1 to which Erdogan will do almost anything. Major Turkish debt refinancing this winter which will be nearly impossible without some intervention or relief.

On a secondary note, I think we should be watching for IS movements near Kirkuk's oil fields. Winter is coming, cash is tight and why would IS slug it out of the smoldering refinery complex in Beiji if they don't control or influence the Kurdish oilfields it is connected to?

[Will]

i missed the "deliberate." Not paying attention. After all it was the Col. that wrote the post about "we have become Shiva the destroyer."

[Poul]

Turkey has no obligations towards Syrian refugees. By treaty they are only required to help European refugees anything more is goodwill. And that goodwill could well be disappearing.

Arabs and Kurds who end up in a Turkish refugee camp with no future for years may finally be ready to chance it and journey to the EU.

[user1234]

Syria post by blogger cassad:

http://cassad.net/politika/analitika/17355-siriyskoe-okno.html (Russian)

Analysis/speculation, probably nothing new for the SST audience.

[Will]

just read that. col cassad is very humorous. captions himself "mouthpiece of totalitarian propganda."

[robt willmann]

This is getting somewhat amusing. The extended family that has the country of Saudi Arabia as its private company is projected to run a budget deficit in its "government" this year (not sure what the fiscal year is for them, if any). The International Monetary Fund estimates it will be $130 billion. In 2014 it was said to be $14 billion. So they are going to start borrowing money by issuing bonds. I wonder if they will be paying interest to the buyers of that debt? Certainly they received interest from the U.S. taxpayer on the U.S. debt they have bought over the decades--

http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-cut-spending-issue-more-bonds-shore-budget-004245907.html

Deficit of not, there is no reduction in the lifestyle, as they rented the entire Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown for the stay in Washington D.C. for meetings with president Obama, et. al. Plenty of cars, too, admitted onto the Andrews military base--

https://twitter.com/carolelee/status/639521976160272384/photo/1

The word is that Saudi Arabia has admitted zero refugees from the violence and destruction it has encouraged and assisted in Syria.

[different clue]

b,

The massive floodwash of refugees from Turkey to Europe would be on Erdogan's initiative in particular, and an Erdogist initiative in general. That means it would be the Erdogists who are trying to torture Europe into supporting ISIS, Nusra, the Syrian "opposition", etc. The Erdogists. NOT the United States gov.

Perhaps it argues long-term for a European abolition of NATO and a European formation of NEATO, the North East Atlantic Treaty Organization, withOUT Erdogist Turkey in it or anywhere near it.

[different clue]

Bandolero,

The ISIS and Nusras won't stop fighting on their own. They will have to be made to stop fighting by greater force. Whether they would only stop fighting when every last Nusra and ISIS person, down to the very last individual, has been killed is something I cannot know. But until they can be made to stop fighting, the war cannot be made to "shorten".

And if the invigorated EU leadership you hope for decides to shorten the war by increasing support for any fighters against the SAR, Russia and lesserly Hezbollah and Iran will simply meet that challenge with enough more support to the SAR to keep it viably fighting and governing over its areas, thereby also prolonging the war.

If the EU really wants to shorten the war, the EU will join Russia, Hezbollah and Iran in giving the SAR so much overwhelming support that Turkey and the Saudi Gulfie aid to the various rebels can't keep up, and all aspects and players in the rebellion can be defeated and then destroyed. Perhaps a victorious SAR will decide what parts of Syria are seriously economically valuable, and scorch and sterilize the earth of the "rest" of Syria and then turn that scorched desert over to ISIS for their Gulfie-Erdogist supported Caliphate. All SAR-loyal Syrians can be welcomed from ISIState into Syria and all SAR-disloyal Syrians can be driven from SAR into the Caliphate.

One hopes that all of Syrian Kurdistan could be liberated and would hopefully choose some sort of close-association status with Syrian Arab Republic to create a seamless cordon-sanitaire against
Erdogist Turkey to the north.

[Amir]

I have a suggestion: instead of saying "non-Seljuk Arabs", you just indicate them as Hijazi Arabs. GCC is Hijazi colony anyway.

[Amir]

What about leaving scores of military material up for grabs in Anbar, for the DAESH to take?

[FB Ali]

Not only was the entire Four Seasons Hotel taken over (after turfing out the people already staying there) but gold furniture was wheeled in to set up the king's suites. Seems he can't sit on a pot unless its made of gold! Poor chap! What a life!

These are the people who seek to run the ME. It seems the US is quite happy to help them do it. Policy apart, rather questionable taste, don't you think?

[turcopolier]

Amir

The Iraqi Army abandoned their gear to IS. The equipment had long since ceased to belong to the US and we have no combatant units in Iraq. No. It was your gutless Arab Iraqi brethren who abandoned their equipment to IS at Ramadi and Mosul. pl

[Kerim]

No surprises there...
As you know that is why (amongst other reasons) they are despised all accross the arab world. Their debauchery, hypocrisy and arrogance is legendary. That makes them THE ultimate target for the salafists and their ilk. The followers of the cross will come afterwards.
Again as has been stated by the Colonel and others, the only way to deal with the "true believers" is extermination. That's, in essence, what the algerian military did (yes I know I'm simplifying).

[Haralambos]

bth,
Your thought does not make sense to me. I think he might want to have the buffer zone mentioned in the piece I posted, but that is just MHO.