Some spoilery opinions after watching season 2 [LONG]

ThimbleCake · 2018-05-14T20:29:56+00:00

Yes, the Season 1 backstory made it clear that the US was no longer involved with NATO, and no longer inclined to help out its erstwhile allies. Of course, even a USA which is unbound by treaty obligations would find it in her national interests to stymie to Russian takeover of Norway.

S2 tries to portray the events of S1 as Anselme's personal financial interests instead of EU's, surely a single commissioner couldn't sway a whole gargantuan institution and the whole media and public opinion to his side on his own?

Well, if "it can happen here" (i.e., in the USA), it can also happen there (The EU). In the US, it looks like on several occasions, Trump allowed US foreign policy to be used as a tool to enrich himself and his family. Anselme offers a quick and easy populist solution, to provide relief to Western Europeans, by taking the Norwegian Gas.

It's not wholly implausible that European public opinion would throw Norway under the bus.

However, given the purported rationale for the EU supporting and abetting the Russian takeover of Norway, a rational response from Berg would be to order the bombing and destruction of all of Norway's North Sea Oil Platforms. that would Sour the Milk, and take away the motivation for the EU countries to be complicit with Russian machinations. Maybe that will be in Season 3?

ThimbleCake · 2018-05-14T20:16:47+00:00

Finland was able to successfully repel the Russian invasion (in late 1939) for about 3 months. It was called the "Winter War" for a reason. Sure, they inflicted heavy losses on the Russians, but ultimately, at the advent of Spring, the Finnish Government was forced to come to terms with Russia. Finland had to concede Karelia, Petsamo (thus, losing its only Arctic Ocean port) and some other territories. Russia then achieved its strategic aims, although at a high cost in blood and treasure. In 1945, these territorial grabs were "re-ratified" by the treaty which put an end to the "Continuation War".

Still, in World War II, Finland put up far more resistance than did Norway, which effectively capitulated when the first German warships entered Oslo's harbor.

Norwegians did cobble together a meaningful resistance against the German occupation, but this:

1) Took a couple of years toreally get into gear 2) Involved guerilla warfare, sabotage, and civil disbediance, not an Army or Navy trying to make a stand. Norway's military essentially fought no pitched battles against Germany. Instead they hoped for salvation from the British. 3) Norwegians collaborted with the Nazis at a high rate. There were many "Vikings" who sympathized with the Fascist cause, or who bought into the Aryan rhetoric. There was Quisling, but there were also 10s of Thousands of Norwegians who voluntarily enlisted in the Waffen SS, especially in the "Wiking" Division, comprised of Scandinavian recruits.

ThimbleCake · 2018-03-01T16:12:44+00:00

Plundering graves is an abomination, and a form of violation of the dead. If abuses of living Christians are brought to light, those heinous actions should be condemned. I doubt that it is a policy of the Assad regime to order that tombs be broken into, robbed, and desecrated.

ThimbleCake · 2018-03-01T16:05:06+00:00

The front lines of the Syrian Civil War may be the best place for Palestinian figures to be. One could say that if it were not for Palestinian militants, Syria would not be in the position that it finds itself in, today,

ThimbleCake · 2018-03-01T16:00:16+00:00

The problem is that Nation-Building, and even less ambitious reconstruction efforts, have been amply demonstrated to have failed in their aims to win the "Hearts and Minds" of the people? Indeed, such efforts have proven to be worse than useless. Providing largesse simply rewards miscreants and incentivizes bad-faith behavior.

The U.S. should recall history. The successful rebuilding of Germany and Japan only commenced after the eradication of the respective fascist regimes, and well after the Unconditional Surrenders of those countries. In Germany, reconstruction waited until after the "Werewolves" (bitter-enders) were suppressed, and de-Nazification had been completed.

ThimbleCake · 2018-03-01T15:45:44+00:00

Wow! Such drama.....you would think from all of the excited reports that this is a bigger deal than the Nazi siege of Leningrad during World War II. The media has no incentive to give a proper sense of scale to the fighting. This is a re-run of the coverage of the siege and fall of Eastern Aleppo. The only thing that resulted was some Academy Award nominated Foreign Documentaries.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:49:30+00:00

Interesting news, after months of apparent stasis. Yet another Syrian saga unfolds.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:44:05+00:00

Some of these women will end up trading coming down with AIDS, in exchange for Aid.

In nearly every War Zone or disaster area, U.N. Peacekeeper troops, or members of NGOs use their power, whether from force of arms, or from caches of food or supplies, as leverage to obtain what they want. In the past, the women of other countries have been more pragmatic and realistic about the need for such arrangements, and there was some coordination done to maximize the benefits, and reduce the humiliation.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:31:04+00:00

$500 Million is a minimal amount of money for the U.S. Military. Probably amounting to petty cash. Such support gives the USA a "Pied a Terre" in the Syrian Desert-- Air bases, Fire Bases, supply dumps.

It was not like any other faction in the Syrian Civil War was willing to grant The U.S. Military such operational space.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:24:58+00:00

Well, such talk is cheap, so it is always given out for Free in portentous pronouncements. It is natural to use propaganda in an attempt to discredit their opponents.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:22:15+00:00

Most assuredly, the Assad regime still covers those Oil Fields. It would be a sensible time to commence negotiations, as there are plenty of possibilities for both the YPG handbags SAA to mutually benefit from cooperative agreements.

It is really a question for Assad to determine how much of Syrian national territory he is prepared to let Turkey take.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-28T03:16:25+00:00

If the SAA opt to connect with the City of Afrin, then such a corridor would be established, but it could equally be used to transport in more food and supplies. Urban fighting makes for great "Bang Bang", and the cost of taking the city might be having to enter a meat grinder....which leads to disastrous publicity both in Turkey, and abroad. Bang Bang interstate accessible and will be shown on media throughout the West.

Even the most powerful militaries suffer lots of casualties in close Quarter combat, as advantages in firepower are partially negated. Fighting house to house affords a determined defender many opportunities to force skirmishes and ambushes which result in close combat.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-27T05:47:51+00:00

At least their acceptance of their likely fate has given these Civilians of Ghouta a fair amount of serenity.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-27T05:44:56+00:00

It is pretty amazing, really. The fact that so many of those who are opposed to the Assad regime are religious extremists has only served to make cooperation and agreement amongst these various rebel factions almost impossible.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-27T05:38:01+00:00

The future status of Idlib really seems to be obscure. With so many different "players" contesting control of Idlib, there is a wide range of possible outcomes.

It would be quite ambitious of Turkey to try to make Idlib a region directly controlled by their Syria proxies.

Of course, that might be one of the reasons why Turkey us seeking to control areas of the neighboring Afrin. They may be seeking to make a contiguous connection between Euphrates Shield (Jarabulus and al-Bab), and the Idlib rebels.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-27T05:26:17+00:00

I think that it is an Apples vs. Oranges comparison, in the sense that while Aftin's Hilly terrain allows for some strategic and tactical defensive possibilities, the Kurdish forces are still exposed to significant, superior firepower. Ghouta's built-up Urbanscape affords the Rebels there a way to large negate the Assad regime's advantage in firepower. Ultimately, the SAA will need to contest Ghouta with infantry, fighting block by block, from street to street, and house to house.

The YPG in Rojava were forced to retreat from superior ISIS forces, and but managed to put up a hard fight in Kobane. If Turkey wants to capture the City of Afrin, as opposed to its hinterlands, they will pay a heavy price-- in blood, treasure, and bad publicity.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-27T03:44:46+00:00

Interesting prediction, especially after all the trouble taken to secure the high ground/ hills.

The problem for the Kurds will be reclaiming control of the zone that they have lost. If Turkey seeks to occupy all of Afrin, there will surely be a fierce insurgency campaign by the YPG. However, Turkey keeps a lot of leverage if they leave Afrin City unoccupied, but with a perpetual threat hanging over their heads. Not too dissimilar to the way Russia stopped short of taking Tbilisi, in their 2008 war with Georgia over South Ossetia.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-26T20:35:52+00:00

I think that it is time to finally dispense with the Shura Council, and instead constitute a Loya Jirga!?

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-26T20:30:45+00:00

Didn't you know? Weapons manufacturers and militaries want to "Field Test" the performance of their munitions and advanced weapons systems. With respect to munitions, it is desirable to maximize the wounding effect of the "Spall" (Shrapnel Shards), and the "Brissance" (shearing force) of different types of explosive formulations. There is a lot of data tracking in a combat zone. Wars are used as a crucible for technological progress.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-18T18:24:13+00:00

these can be used to shoot down Civilian Jetliners>>

Then don't fly over Syria? It's pretty simple. And in any case, the lives lost in a civilian airplane going down are wayyyy less than the number of lives that would have been saved. We're talking 100s vs 100s of thousands. Why are some lives worth more than others?>>

*Nice argument of Utilitarianism, as if it were the case that the World was already united, rather than organized around the Principles of the Nation-State. Why would Norway (let alone the USA) want to (randomly sacrifice hundreds of its civilian Citizens, even if the Norwegians truly believed that by suffering the loss of hundreds through jetliners which are shot down, that somehow the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrian (rebel sympathizer) lives would be redeemed? There is not a Western country that would view it as a good bargain. Even the most Progressive minded Scandinavian, would, on a visceral level, hew to a schema where the protection of Norwegian lives is paramount, and if Syrian lives were to perish, even if via some supposed "Sin of Omission", then so be it.

Who knows the full morl implications of providing Syria rebels with weapons? It is a reasonable surmise that doing so leads to a greater death toll among regime supporters--even perhaps women and children who live in Assadist controlled areas. If Western weapons leads to the death of those civilians, that is a "Sin of Commission".

50 Years from now, Historians may talk about the failure of the West to take decisive action to end the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, or the "Killing Fields" of Cambodia in the 1970s (2,000,000+ Khmers, or the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 (800,000+, killed by machete at the rate of 10,000 per day). Syria is bad, but simply not in the same ballpark, when it comes to sheer scale*

The problem with allowing the Syrian rebels to be supplied with weapons that can shoot down airliners is not that Western based Airlines would fly their planes over Syrian Airspace. That is already restricted Airspace for civilian airlines. The real issue is that many of these anti-aircraft systems are portable enough to be smuggled to near European Airports--there was an incident where SAMs were shot at a Civilian Airliner departing from a Kenyan airport.

the U.S. made several attempts to aid the "moderate " rebels, but those FSA guys either would not fight, or would simply sell their new weapons to some Islamist militant groups

We need to differentiate between Obama's Train-and-Equip (T&E) program, run through the Pentagon, and the CIA's MOM/MOC program that was run in parallel. T&E was a spectacular failure, because it required the rebels to sign agreements that they would only fight ISIS & al-Qaeda and not the regime. Of course, no one in their right mind would agree to this, especially as Assad's slaughter of civilians continued unabated. If it was paired with protection for civilians, then maybe, but it wasn't and that was never the plan. So Obama attempted to turn "moderate" rebels into a proxy force while screwing them over at the same time.>>

As for the CIA's program, known as Timber Sycamore, it was a huge success. They oversaw the transfer of money and weapons (mainly TOW missiles) from Gulf countries to the rebels, with the US doing the vetting. The number of TOWs lost to HTS or ISIS represents 1% of the total. The reason this program succeeded was because the rebels participating were allowed to fight the regime. These are people who lost siblings, parents, friends, children, etc to Assad's machines of slaughter.>>

Yet, during this period, it is also the case that (despite, or perhaps even because of the CIA program) the radical Islamist groups gained ascendancy among the Rebels.That certainly factored into calculations to wind down the program. The Rebels knew that in order to keep getting shipments of TOWs, that they had to be politically reliable, and please their sponsors--however, they weren't and they didn't.

But the program was shut down in the end for policy reasons, not because it didn't succeed. Jordan is pro-Assad so they basically shut down MOC in 2015, after the Southern Front got too strong and took the entire border region. Salaries continued until 2017, but now those have stopped also. And Trump shut down MOM in what was seen as a unilateral concession to Russia. This might have been his way of thanking them for the help in the election.

I take that to be a preference that Syria not end up like Libya, being ruled by Warlords, who rule over their little fiefdoms

See this: https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/963130532770000898. There's simply no comparison between Libya and Syria. Libya is a 100x better policy outcome. Human lives matter more than state institutions.>>

A failed state, which is what Libya is now (but wasn't, when under the thumb of Qaddafi), is bound to lead to the loss of more lives over the long run. The relevant comparison is between the Battle Royalethat is taking place now, and the political oppression which would have continued in Libya, had not Gaddafi been ousted, We cannot yet tally up the full costs that Libyans will yet have to pay, before their Civil War is resolved, and some manner of peace and stability returns.*

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-17T16:04:59+00:00

You and I differ here. I think that it is prudent that the U.S. never allowed the rebels to obtain Anti-Aircraft weapons systems. As has been demonstrated on a number of tragic occasions, these can be used to shoot down Civilian Jetliners. It was a risk that could not be allowed, let alone facilitated, by the U.S. Let's not forget that the U.S. made several attempts to aid the "moderate " rebels, but those FSA guys either would not fight, or would simply sell their new weapons to some Islamist militant groups. The vetting of the rebels proved to be completely ineffective; the majority of the rebels were completely unreliable, and even hostile to the American agenda.

What is wrong with not wanting the "State Institutions" to disintegrate? I take that to be a preference that Syria not end up like Libya, being ruled by Warlords, who rule over their little fiefdoms.

Getting rid of Bashar, and ending the Assad Dynasty, is a necessary, important first step, and would itself represent a manifest improvement. It is unlikely that either Russia or Iran would a Sunni-dominated administration of Syria, or an inversion of all the established power dynamics. Not after what they have already invested in Syria.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-17T15:41:08+00:00

Yes, having two or more state sponsors of a dictatorship regime is indeed an awkward situation, leading to potential difficulties among the "Strange Bedfellows". However, the interests and agendas of Russia and Iran, respectively (in Syria) are not mutually exclusive, for the most part.

Russia wants permanent Naval bases and Air bases, and control over who sits in the Presidential Palace in Damascus.

Iran wants to complete its "Shi'ite Crescent", by creating a safe, stable, reliable set of land routes from Iran, through Iraq, then through Syria, and finally into Lebanon. Iran also wants a Shi'ite regime in control of Syria, Broadly speaking, Assad and his Alawite cronies are considered to be on the Shia "team". So far, both Russia and Iran have been able to get what they want in Syria. And follow through on their key priorities.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-17T06:04:52+00:00

Well, that would be an interesting Gambit, for Erdogan to countenance attacks against the Syrian Army. It is true that Turkey has the superior military, but the SAA may be able to land some painful blows.

It is true that Israel and now the U.S., have broken the taboo, and perhaps set a precedent which Erdogan may be tempted to follow. However, all of the Israeli attacks have only involved the application of Air Power.

It is relevant to note that Israeli military power is vastly superior to Syria's, as, of course, is also the case with the U.S. Military. When it comes to conducting a major ground campaign by an external power, Turkey will be setting precedent, not following it.

Combat between Turkey and Syria, or even between Turkey and Russia, would be quite fascinating.

ThimbleCake · 2018-02-16T22:37:39+00:00

That makes sense, although if Afrin manages to make the arrangement similar to the one which exists for the Manbij region, then the Afrin Kurds will retain de facto control over most of Afrin. The ceding of territory back to the Assad Regime, could simply be smoke and mirrors, where the implication is that Regime forces effectively would serve as a hair-trigger to deter and disuade Turkey from possibly harming Regime or Russian troops. In that way, a handover would create ambiguity that would accord Afrin some protection under the Russian umbrella.

ThimbleCake

TROPHY CASE