A new RAND report examines five options for U.S. and allied military intervention in the Syrian civil war using airpower, and warns that destroying or grounding the Syrian air force is operationally feasible but would have only marginal benefits for protecting civilians.
The report also concludes that any airpower option would involve substantial risks of escalation by third parties, or could lead to greater U.S. military involvement in Syria.
The study by RAND, a nonprofit research organization, comes at a time when the Syrian government has been accused of using chemical weapons against opposition forces, accusations that drew threats of military action from the United States and other western nations.
"There are five basic missions the United States and its partners could take on to pursue the goals of protecting civilians, limiting or containing the conflict, or changing the course of the civil war," said Karl Mueller, a senior political scientist and lead author of the report. "Choosing between them, or not doing any of them, should be based on a clear sense of the military realities and their potential rewards and risks."
The five missions are:
Negate Syrian airpower by maintaining a "no-fly zone" over Syria, or by destroying the Syrian air force. The likely availability of nearby bases in Turkey and elsewhere make this a relatively easy task for the U.S. and allied forces, although maintaining a prolonged no-fly zone could impose significant burdens on the forces involved. Negating Syrian airpower would have only a marginal direct effect on protecting Syrian civilians, as most civilian casualties have been caused by government ground forces.
Neutralize Syria's extensive but mostly antiquated air defenses, which is well within the U.S. military's ability. Syria's integrated air defense system primarily consists of 1970s-era radar and surface-to-air missile technology, which U.S. pilots were able to overcome in Iraq and Serbia. This would begin with intense air and cruise missile strikes against Syrian air bases and air defense systems, followed by a longer hunt for mobile missiles. However, such an effort would be used to facilitate other operations, not an end in itself.
Create safe areas where Syrian civilians could be largely -- but not completely -- protected from air attack, artillery bombardment and direct ground attack by U.S. and allied air forces. Effectively protecting the civilians in these areas would require competent forces on the ground. If not provided by the U.S. and its allies, the forces would need to be provided by the Syrian opposition, in which case protecting safe areas would also amount to providing air cover for anti-regime forces.
Enable opposition forces to defeat President Bashar al-Assad's regime, using airpower similar to that employed by the U.S. to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Such a mission would require the use of fighters, bombers and remotely piloted aircraft to strike Syrian army and other regime targets. The authors assess that the current balance of the war favors the regime, and that the opposition forces would require substantial military support to defeat Syrian ground forces and gain the upper hand. Such a mission, the authors warn, would help both desirable opposition groups and extremists. Moreover, there is a risk that a successful mission could lead to instability spilling over Syria's borders to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq or beyond, and to widespread retribution against populations associated with the defeated regime.
Prevent the use of Syrian chemical weapons by using air attacks to strike Assad's chemical weapons stockpiles and their delivery systems, or deter future use of chemical weapons. Attacking or threatening to attack targets Assad values more than his chemical weapons stockpile would help avoid creating "use-it-or-lose-it" incentives for additional chemical attacks. The authors warn that while airpower could be used to reduce the Assad regime's ability or desire to launch large-scale chemical attacks, eliminating its chemical weapon arsenal would require a large ground operation.
"The U.S. and its allies can certainly conduct an operationally successful air campaign in Syria," Mueller said. "But each of these aerial intervention options has the potential to escalate or expand the conflict, and could lead to unwelcome responses from Assad's allies or to wider or deeper U.S. military involvement. The next steps following an initial intervention should be central to any strategic planning for using airpower in Syria."
The report, "Airpower Options for Syria: Assessing Objectives and Missions for Aerial Intervention," can be found at www.rand.org. Its co-authors are Jeffrey Martini and Thomas Hamilton.
The report was supported through philanthropic contributions and conducted within the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy, which brings together analytic excellence and regional expertise from across RAND to address the most critical political, social, and economic challenges facing the Middle East today.
Do you fok'ing ALREADY have boots on the ground Klingon para-mil operatives in Syria? Have you ALREADY coordinated targets with your "non-AQ moderates" fighting Assad? Are we ALREADY in a clandestine, Soodie funded conflict ?
#8
As per #1, the USAF just said it not ready or prepared to support any strike on Syria.
Which indirectly means or infers IMO that ground troops will be needed, espec iff the Bammer intends to do more than just attack baby Assad's CHemWar assets.
Lest we fergit, AFAIK THE SO-CALLED "OBAMA DOCTRINE" MAKES NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN KINDS OR TYPES OF WMDS USED BY A DICTATOR + GOVT. IN THE COMMISSION OF HEINIOUS/MALICIOUS CRIMES AGZ HIS OWN PEOPLE.
AFAIK again, no one is talking about taking out Assad's BIOLOGICAL, ETC, NON-CHEMICAL WEAPONS [NBC-CBRNE], OR DID I MISS SOMETHING???
Yes, its very Onion-ish, and satirical, but under the humourous surface is something to be considered.
By "VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH PUTIN"
[Breitbart] You Americans want to remove my ally, the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad. To borrow a phrase from your John F. Kennedy, Assad may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's my son-of-a-bitch.
So if you want to destroy him, what are you going to give me in return? If your answer is, "We will give you nothing," well, why would I ever agree to that? That's not negotiation, that's dictation; it's a return to the bad Yeltsin days, when Holy Mother Russia was pushed into the mud like a used whore.
Look, I'll be the first to say that Obama's "red line" comment was dumb. It's obvious he hadn't thought it through; one can see it in the words he used to express his policy. He said that the "red line" would be crossed if "a whole bunch" of chemical weapons were used. What kind of language is that? How does one quantify a "whole bunch"? This is the President of the High-and-Mighty United States, and he's talking like a schoolboy?
The Romans, who knew something about both imperialism and trickery, always asked, cui bono--who benefits? Well, the beneficiaries in this episode are the rebels--also known as Al Qaeda. Way to go, Americans!
So let's check some other news items: Here's a June 6 item from a Turkish newspaper reporting on "the case of Syrian rebels who were seized on the Turkish-Syrian border with two kilograms of sarin." And it's not just the Turks: Carla Del Ponte, the Swiss-born former UN Prosecutor for War Crime Tribunals, has echoed those same charges against the rebels. They're the bad guys!
Yet could this evidence against the rebels all be Russian disinformation? Hey, we're good, but not that good.
Meanwhile, go ahead: Look for this information in your mainstream American media--your so-called "free press." You can barely find it. Yankee lapdog reporters will cover everything that Obama says, and everything that John McCain says, but they won't send reporters to warzones to go and actually figure out what happened.
Yes, American reporters are sheep. They try to figure out what Obama wants them to write, and then they write it. Or if Obama doesn't have a clear line on some topic--which is often--they look over the shoulder of the reporter next to them and copy that. Like I said, sheep.
The result is a herd mentality, showing no understanding of what true necessity truly looks like.
Pakistan is the real problem--they make Afghanistan possible. So those are the real evil empires: Iran and Pakistan. Bringing them to heel won't be easy, of course, but we Russians have never shied away from strong measures. The Americans could learn a lot from us.
So that's my vision. Let's stop worrying about silly little niceties about the right and the wrong way to fight a war. Let's stop trying to bring democracy to barbarians. Instead, let's bring them the only thing they understand--force.
Let's join one another to crush the unholy, unruly, jihadi Muslims. The good Muslims will thank us for it. And if they don't--too bad.
Posted by: Paul D ||
09/04/2013 6:56 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I agree with everything: Pakistan, the press, Obama and specially the Jihadis. We helped them in both Bosnia and Afganistan and they rewarded us with 9/11.
And not just Arabs; in soccer matches in Bosnia the assistants displayed signs supporting Saddam.
#3
Can't tell if its really from Putin because a lot of the verbage sounds very American, but I agree with nearly every word.
W. Bush should have bought the Russians and Chinese off long ago with free-rain in Central Asia. Tell them we'll talk smack about freedom but basically do nothing about it when it comes to their backyard in exchange for help or at least non-backstabbyness.
[WashPost] Al-Qaedas leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones, hoping to exploit the technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses upon the terrorist network, according to top-secret U.S. intelligence documents.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
