Fareed Zakariya the man who loves America as he would like it to be, assembled a panel of his fellow Borgistas today to ask their opinions on the shape of events to come in 2016.
The group was made up of Richard Haas, Anne Marie Slaughter and some other dweeb whose name I can never remember (old age showing).
For me, the most interesting aspect of their meditations was the contemplation of the fate of Syria in this year. Not a word was said throughout of the combat situation in either Syria or Iraq. The talk was all of the diplomatic prospects involved in the apparent belief that the progress of the war(s) on the ground meant nothing. I presume that this is at least in part the result of the total military ignorance of the participants.
But, Haas is the well entrenched president of the CFR.
Anne Marie Slaughter is the head of the New America Foundation
The dweeb is the acerbic head of some foundation for great thinkers.
Slaughter is obviously parked at NAF in waiting for appointment by HC as secretary of something or other. She opined in her prediction on Syria that Russia will soon "cave" and become "cooperative" because the public psychology in Russia is incapable of accepting casualties. She seems to think that everyone will "come to their senses" if they are scolded enough. She favors a federated Syria. I guess she does not understand that federation is not thought of as other than weakness in the ME. (The UAE is a club for sovereign princes nd is hardly a country at all). She also thinks that a negotiated settlement in Syria can be reached without Turkish acquiescence.
R+6 is advancing everywhere; south of Damascus they are approaching the Israeli occupied Golan Heights and are now just east of the Israeli demolished city of Quneitra. R+6 is also pressing NE from Kuweires air base, SW from Aleppo and the Syrian Army with Russian support is grinding up rebel forces along the approaches to Idlib Province. This attritional battle will result IMO in a breakthrough moment.
The YPG Kurds and their Green Beret pals are moving west against the rhetorical resistance of Sultan Tayyip's Turkey. This is made possible by US air and the air defense umbrella provided by the Russian expeditionary force.
The discourse here on SST sometimes lapses into social science gibberish, completely detached from reality, but the comparison to the actual Borgist elites makes you all look good. pl
main difference, for this theatre of operation, is active anti-ATGM electronics, as you mentioned.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 05 January 2016 at 10:22 AM
Nothing new under the sun ... if you see it coming, you got 2-3 secs to take cover. if you don't see it, or have no cover to hide behind, you better cling onto that steering wheel. If you're lucky, you wont feel a thing !
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 05 January 2016 at 10:24 AM
terrain, tank- and ATGM-crew training, speed of reaction. It's a newer version of a very old dichotomy: bullet vs armour
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 05 January 2016 at 10:26 AM
more like German copycat cheese-name for camembert (no offence chantose, but nothing particularly French to that name, IMO)
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 05 January 2016 at 10:31 AM
NO, ISIS' centre of gravity is the ME, in particular Iraq, not so much Syria, despite this being hyped up to fit the narrative of "Assad has to go so we can focus on ISIS afterwards" (which defies any sense of logic).
Despite the Muslim "Foreign Legion" fighting for the "Caliph" this is an organisation that is aiming for Statehood. they need a territorial base for that, and although they're flexible on the fringes, losing the core of their land (Anbar and parts of Niniveh and Diyala) would be a severe blow to them.
Now of course, if that happened, some of the survivors would surely try to set up shop in some of the areas you mentioned. Others would just do as they did post-surge, wait for their day to come (again)
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 05 January 2016 at 10:35 AM
Thanks for your reply.
no, no, no, I am certainly not dismissing mankind’s need for glory and a cause greater themselves. As a matter of fact from my family origin, history and cultures this need and search is part of me and my life, what I have build and/or demolished.
As a matter of fact I have no difficulties in "understanding" those from Europe or MENA, and further, djihadists gathering to Syria. And yes there is an appeal for supreme sacrifice among the young bucks, even enthusiasm and specially inside a group.
Still, IMO they are manipulated (mercenaries excepted), as were the Red Brigades, the Baader Meinhoff group and the lost soldiers of the OAS.
What I did dismiss is not so much the romantization that the typically french academic developments (I am French)and the convocation of past great thinkers; and that for the purpose of supporting this claim of Greatest Revolutionnary New Doctrine.
My central objection is there, because their proponents are closer to cynical manipulators and con-men than any Prophet contrary to Bin Laden, whose project was also the caliphate.
But if I wanted to offer a sociological approach to this phenomenon I would more refer to the concept of Anomy as expressed by Durkheim. The source of this flow of volunteers for a bad cause, using bad means, moved by narcissic unsatisfaction and frustrations, is perfectly synchron, IMO, with the epoch we leave in: La Société du Spectacle and consumation, where the access to Toyota, Black Stylish dress, prohibited toys,access to easy sex, overules all laws, all humanity.
Yes Colonel Lang is consistenly correct (almost, not on Oil) as world apart we might seem to be, after many of his reactions I had simply nothing to add.
These is frustrating (Lol).
Posted by: Charles Michael | 05 January 2016 at 10:53 AM
Within Syria itself, I've been told of similar things about Hama, in 1980s. (Obviously, I lack firsthand knowledge).
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | 05 January 2016 at 12:39 PM
In a way, the transnational/multiculturalism operates by breaking down communities. Bill Clinton is not a Bubba, nor is Obama a black man, or GW Bush an evangelical Texan. They are all part of the same transnational elite, even if of different tribes. Their protestations of tribal affiliations are, in the end, superficial affectations.
What is more is that tribal loyalties are actively discouraged, again, in the name of transnational cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, whatever. The linkage to the English Civil War era cavalierism (and its American Civil War descendants) seems apt: these folks were, in the end, "tribals." "Moderns" err because they are evaluated by the logic of the cosmopolitans: they are "wrong" because they believed in X and didn't believe in Y...but what kept them together as meaningful entities was their tribal loyalties, much more than any particular globalist ideology...of which they weren't really part of anyways.
But is the analogy apt vis-a-vis the modern Middle East? IS is itself built around a globalist, cosmopolitan ideology, even if its tenets are completely contrary to the Western ones. The only "tribals" left in the region are some Kurdish and Arab Sunni tribals, plus other insular minority groups, literally, whose lives and tribal connections are about to be swallowed up by globalist hegemonies. We (the West) might be eager to use them and toss them, but we don't understand them well (beyond a few knowledgeable and Romanticist individuals) and quite frankly, our leaders don't care to.
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | 05 January 2016 at 12:49 PM
Patrick
Interesting surmise. The "Chant" part is English, but as a kid for some reason my German-extracted Mom would call me down to breakfast thusly: "Chantose! Eggen!" English/French/German/Norsk maybe?
Posted by: chantose | 05 January 2016 at 03:56 PM
Babak,
That a rootless cosmopolitan court eunuch can find so much success is the problem with the USA nowadays.
Posted by: Tyler | 05 January 2016 at 09:39 PM
Lisa,
The Israelis have again made their own enemy. As iron sharpens iron, man sharpens man. The SAA is leaps beyond where it was before all this. I doubt these 'lessons learned in blood' will be forgotten anytime soon.
Posted by: Tyler | 05 January 2016 at 09:41 PM
Kao, since you refer to it, I have no doubt you also know how authorities responded to truce. Or don't you?
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 January 2016 at 12:48 PM
thanks, I didn't know she was drummed out of academia.
Half-serious, I got that.
Concerning your take of NATO leaders, definitively what I head of the respective spokesmen, or representatives, didn't sound reassuring.
Posted by: LeaNder | 06 January 2016 at 02:53 PM
Sure. Their leaders did everything to squelch it, but that they had to take extraordinary steps against them is exactly the point. When the people occupying the trenches "obviously" belong to different tribes, you don't need the authorities to step in to keep them from fraternizing: their songs are obviously different, so they will fight as befitting different tribes. Most conflicts are waged by people with different songs and dance. The West, with its shared transnational heritage, is a bit different. But I think what happens naturally in the West is not something that can be expected normally elsewhere.
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | 06 January 2016 at 08:15 PM
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam?
Posted by: YT | 08 January 2016 at 08:31 AM
I can think of a better one. She could take a long walk off a short pier. Preferably wearing concrete shoes. And a lead overcoat.
Posted by: Misanthrope | 08 January 2016 at 05:41 PM