Estado de las cosas (2)

Acá va otro resumen de situación en torno a los principales conflictos actualmente en curso o en ciernes. Lo escribe Pat Lang, analista militar desde su blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis (http://turcopolier.typepad.com/). Acá va: 


Título: What in the world? 8 March 2016

Texto: There is so much going on in the world that I want state my opinions during these interesting days.   I don't claim that this is reportage, only my opinion:

* US Foreign policy.  What on earth are we doing?  Carter, Durnford, Nuland, Brennan and the incredible Breedlove all seem intent on war with Russia.  Russia is a much weaker country militarily and economically than the US but it is also armed with several thousand deliverable nuclear weapons.  Is it really wise to pick a fight with an entity that may feel deeply threatened by such things as NATO expansion but which also possesses the ability to destroy you in a mutual festival of death reminiscent of what happens if you put two scorpions in a jar.  Breedlove in particular is a bizarre creature.  He looks and talks like a used car salesman pushing to get the numbers up for the month.  What exactly has Russia done to require such aggressive reactions from the US?  Breedlove wants to permanently return a heavy (armored) US Army brigade to Europe?  For what purpose is that desired?  Is it to deter Russia from invading Ukraine, the Baltics or some other place in eastern Europe?  Does anyone not invested in international tension really think Russia is going to invade these places?  Is it anticipated that the Russian intervention in Georgia set a pattern for Russian aggression?  If that is really believed at the level of government of the people named above then war may be inevitable.  In "Doctor Strangelove"  General Buck Turgidson, USAF (imagined) tells the president that he can "absolutely guarantee" that US casualties in a USSR/USA thermonuclear exchange  would be "no more then 10 million dead, 20 million tops!"  In fact the estimates current in the US government before the fall of the USSR were for much higher US casualties than that.  What on earth are we doing?

* Yemen.  The Saudis have been defeated. They have lost a lot of men and have shown themselves to be inferior fighters when compared to the Yemen Army/Houthi forces.  This makes the "threat" of Saudi intervention in Syria a massively nonsensical fraud.  If exposed to the heat of the campaign now being waged in Syria by R+6, the Saudis and their mercenaries would melt away like snow. 

* Israel.  Natanyahu and company are so sure of their "soft power"  (campaign money) position in the US that he dares to once again show his contempt for Obama by spurning an invitation to the Oval Office.  What is his problem?  He wants more money and equipment than Obama is willing to give him and he wants the US to be silent about any damned thing he wants to do?  Failing that he thinks that he will get a better "deal" from the next US president?  Well, you see, pilgrims, beggars really CAN be choosers.

* Turkey.  Erdogan and his dwarf familiar Davutoglu are well along in the process of destroying Kemalist secular Turkey and its constitution.    There are now direct assaults on press freedom and individual self expression in Turkey.  At the same time Erdogan continues to have the Turkish Army shell YPG positions in Syria.  He cannot do more because Russian air defenses have blocked him from anything more  At the same time Erdogan and his Grima Wormtongue PM clone are trying to blackmail the EU into giving them a great deal of money and accelerated EU admission in return for a cessation of Turkey's little "refugee" project.  "They have brass balls" was the old US Army that described people like them.

* Afghanistan. "Good money thrown after bad."  We created a state apparatus that Afghanistan can never pay for from domestic resources.  And even that bloated structure cannot hold the state's effective territory against the Taliban and IS jihadis.  The area of jihadi control is continuously expanding.

* Syria.  R+6 forces are advancing across the country.  There have been local jihadi and unicorn counter-attacks in the last week but they have all been defeated.   the liberation of Palmyra and the relief of the isolated Deir as-zor enclave seem inevitable.   FSA and other more or less seculars rebels are surrendering to the government amnesty program and in many cases are being put back in charge of defending village localities.  The elimination of rebel forces in Lattakia and Idlib provinces seems likely.  In the east, IS defenses appear to be crumbling from a lack of resources now that the money derived from oil exports through Turkey have largely been halted by Russian and US air.  Logistics rules!  The "long pole" for me continues to be the small number of ground forces available to R+6. 

* Iraq.  Iraqi Army and Shia militia forces are moving forward in Anbar and Salah ad-Din provinces.  IMO this is a result of the general crumbling of IS forces.

* Libya.  The next big place.