Russian General: Why Assad can't win the war in Syria

This is very interesting and specific .. and it is written by a Russian General.. Putin can't afford this war.

Russian General: Here's Why Assad can't win the war in Syria.


The following is a translation of a scathing article on the state of the Syrian Arab Army that appeared in an online outlet Gazeta.ru, which is Kremlin-controlled but sometimes critical of the Russian authorities online.

The author is a retired Russian officer with 8 years of experience working in the General Staff and 5 years as an editor of an established military magazine.

The article, originally titled "It would be easier to disband the Syrian army and recruit a new one", mirrors the emerging Syria fatigue sentiments in the Russian military circles and reportedly was confirmed by a serving Russian colonel, who added "Everything is like it’s written but worse".

The expert notably omits mentioning regime war crimes even when describing the use of barrel bombs. Throughout the text, he calls Syrian rebels "militants" and "illegal armed groups" — terms widely used by Russian military and media to describe Chechen fighters during the wars. This anti-rebel stance perhaps lends even more credibility to the author’s assessment of their capabilities versus those of the SAA.

While militias, Iranian volunteers, Hezbollah and PMCs fight in lieu of the Syrian army, Bashar Assad’s soldier busy themselves with collecting bribes at checkpoints.

This view becomes more and more widespread among military experts aware of the actual situation in Syria. The country’s air force is worn down and uses home-made bombs, the soldiers dig moats to protect from terrorists’ tunnels, while the militants enjoy tactical and moral superiority, says Mikhail Khodarenok, Gazeta.ru’s military observer.

The pro-government forces are likely to capture the city of Aleppo soon. However, it remains doubtful if this will bring the end of the Syrian war closer. In Middle Eastern wars, there is no single building to plant a flag on that would make the enemy surrender unconditionally.

Indeed, it is quite hard to say which side is currently winning the military conflict. Bashar al-Assad, the president of the Syrian Arab Republic, still does not control about half the country’s territory and a majority of towns and villages.

The results of the fighting in Syria so far have been disastrous. The total number of Syrians killed has grown to 250-300 thousand (giving a more precise number is impossible), while about a million people have been wounded. Syrians of all ethnic and religious denominations have grown weary of the civil war that has dragged on for over five years.

Always defeated

The actual fighting against opposition groups is mostly done by Syrian militias, the Lebanese Hezbollah Shia units, Iranian and Iraqi volunteers and Private Military Companies (PMCs).

The main military actions Assad’s army engages in is extorting a tribute from the locals. The Syrian armed forces have not conducted a single successful offensive during the past year.

Apparently Syria’s General Staff has no coherent short-term or mid-term strategic plans. Assad’s generals do not believe their troops can bring the country to order without military aid from foreign states. They do not plan large-scale operations, giving the reasoning of ostensibly high combat capabilities of the illegal armed groups, lack of ammunition and modern equipment, a fear of heavy losses and a negative outcome of the fighting.

The Syrian army’s junior officers, NCOs and privates have little enthusiasm to charge and fight for their motherland. The general morale deterioration is exacerbated by the fact that the history of the modern Syrian army has known no military victories.

Assad’s army bears the brand of constant defeats and humiliations since the first Arab-Israeli wars of 1947-1948.

The Syrian army fighters see no close end to the crisis. There are no set dates of ending military service. The achievements of soldiers and officers are not encouraged or awarded. The materiel and food supplies are inadequate. There are no benefits for soldiers or their families.

Most importantly, even if the Syrian leadership wished to solve these problems, they couldn’t raise the funds to do so. Assad’s government currently has no stable income sources.

Years of fighting have severely disrupted the country’s economy. Industrial production has fallen by 70%, agriculture — by 60%, oil production — by 95% and natural production — by 70%. The Syrian treasury has no money even for immediate defense expenditures.

This situation is further exacerbated by the Syrian army being severely understaffed and underequipped. Currently, the staffing and equipment levels stand a bit over 50% of the required figures. The yearly draft does not satisfy even the minimal needs of the army. Due to this, since 2011 sergeants and privates who have served their terms have not been discharged.

The draft fails due to a number of reasons. Some potential conscripts support the anti-government forces and actively dodge the draft. Others have joined the illegal armed groups. Still others have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, preferring not to fight for any of the sides.

Many potential recruits have become refugees outside Syria, some of them in Europe. A large part of the population lives on territories outside the government troops’ control. Finally, recruits and their families fear reprisals from the militants.

The majority of Syrian army units are based at fortified checkpoints.

There are in total about 2 thousand such checkpoints throughout Syria. Thus, over a half of the army operates with no connection to their units.

Sitting inside those fortified checkpoints, the Syrian regulars are mostly doing defensive duties and extorting money from the locals. They do not conduct any major operations to liberate population or administration centers.

Such pillars of any military as "A superior’s order is the law for his subordinate" and "An order is to be performed at all costs, precisely, timely and with no objections", are at best limitedly enforced in the Syrian army.

"Barrel" bombs"

It is hard to find anything worthy of studying or imitation from the Syrian army’s military practice.

The only worthy examples are of the "How not to wage war" variety.

The Air Force deserves a special mention. The Syrian Arab Air Force conducts a significant number of sorties daily (reaching 100 in certain days in 2015), over 85% of which are bombing runs.

The Air Force’s contribution to the overall fire damage is about 70%. The airstrikes are conducted by several dozen fighter/bomber jets and around 40 army aviation helicopters.

continued

https://citeam.org/here-s-why-assad-s-army-can-t-win-the-war-in-syria/

 

The SyAAF’s main modus operandi is solitary sorties. Flights in pairs and larger units are not done in order to save resources. In order to decrease losses, the bombing runs are done at heights of 3 thousand meters and above. In extreme cases, dive bombing is used.

Due to the lack of air ordnance, the Syrian army has until recently used even sea mines, torpedoes and depth charges for ground attacks. The so-called "barrel bombs" are also widely used. Over 10,000 of the latter have been dropped on the enemy.

A "barrel bomb" is a type of home-made air ordnance weighting 200 to 1000 kg. It is a section of a wide oil pipeline welded shut with metal plates from both sides and stuffed with a high amount of explosives. A "barrel bomb" is highly explosive and is used to destroy buildings and attack large gatherings of the militants.

There is no pilot training to replenish the combat losses (training in Russia has been discontinued). The aircraft are not being repaired (the only aircraft repair plant is inside the Aleppo warzone).

Various estimates put the air force’s losses since the start of the conflict (April 2011) at about 200 planes and over 150 pilots.

The tunnel war

Tunnel and anti-tunnel tactics have seen widespread use during the Syria war. Tunnels are used to blow up multi-storey buildings used as command posts or ammunition and materiel depots. Drilling machines can dig tunnels at a speed of 3-4m/day while improvised machinery can do 1-2m/day.

Underground tunnels and passages have been gun in Syria since the times of the Roman Empire and the founding of the first cities, such as Palmyra (Tadmor), Damascus, Raqqa and Homs. The local soil encourages this. Being rather soft and clayey, the soil does not slough, which is why both sides of the conflict toil endlessly to dig underground passages of all kinds and purposes.

Militants dig tunnels or use a wide network of old ones to achieve surprise during attacks on military facilities and government troops. Despite a severe underground threat, the Syrian army has a rather negligent attitude to this. There is almost no information on caves or underground communications in towns or militant-controlled territories adjacent to them.

However, various anti-tunnel techniques are used to protect government troops and important facilities, such as using georadars (anomaly detectors), building counter-tunnels, digging shafts and building anti-tunnel moats.

The main technique government troops employs against enemy tunnels is drilling shafts.

Using dedicated drilling vehicles, holes up to 15 m deep are dug around important facilities at a distance up to 15 m. Then plastic tubes are inserted into the shafts and filled with sand. The fighters of the unit defending the facility monitor sand level in the tubes. Sagging sand indicates ongoing digging.

Another technique to counter enemy "diggers" is anti-tunnel mines — using excavators to extract soil up to 12 meters deep around military positions and important facilities. The time required to build a moat like that depends on the specifications of excavators involved and the heaviness of soil.

Militants’ morale and tactical advantage

Among the leadership of terrorists and armed Syrian opposition groups there are many former Iraqi officers who used to serve under Saddam Hussein.

They have amassed huge experience during the Iran-Iraq war and the two Gulf wars. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) higher officers are former General Staff leaders, brigade and division generals and colonels, while the rebel units are mostly staffed with deserters from Assad’s army.

The militants are highly mobile and capable of rapidly creating assault groups at critical points of the frontline. They have good knowledge of the area (70% of the illegal armed groups’ fighters are Syrian nationals) and command significant financial and human resources.

In the absence of a precise front line, the armed opposition groups engage in active focal fighting. Most of their efforts are applied to holding commanding heights and towns prepared for a perimeter defense. This enables fire control of government troops’ movement lines.
The high survivability of the militants during stationary fighting in fortified areas is ensured by using shelters prepared in advance. Those shelters often hide their actual location, numbers and composition.

The militants place observation points close to the contact line for advance detection of the government troops’ assault groupings. A post is manned by 2-3 people with means of observation, communication and transportation. The militants strive to maintain control over areas by conducting local counterattacks, sabotage in the rear (including suicide attacks), constantly work to seize initiative from the government troops.

As a rule, counterattacks are performed by small groups of 10-15 militants in 3-4 cars with mounted heavy machine guns and 82mm mortars, supported by multi-launching rocket systems. One to five such groups may take part in an attack.

The purpose of the counterattacks is regaining initiative with the aim to reestablish control over the lost position an the territory in general.

When under attack from Russian forces, the armed groups leave their positions and towns, maintaining small groups of observers.

The militants’ units that have sustained significant damage are redeployed to Turkey or to areas under active ceasefire to restore capabilities, reinforce and resupply.

The morale and combat capabilities of the militants are highly above those of the SAA soldiers.

The illegal armed groups have integrated guerrilla and terrorist techniques into their tactics, combining them with conventional warfare methods utilized by regular troops. Their tactics continue to adapt based on the enemy’s behavior.

The command system the illegal armed groups have created enables prompt and rather efficient reactive measures towards changing conditions. The militants’ success is made easier by the openness of Syria’s borders (the government only controls the Syria-Lebanon border and a 50 km stretch of the Syria-Jordan border.

Time to go home

At the start of the civil war, the government troops enjoyed a quantitative advantage in everything, especially aviation, tanks and artillery. Assad could reasonably hope for a swift success in fighting irregular armed groups of the rebels.

However, the Syrian Civil War and the fight against islamists have once again confirmed that a numeric and technical advantage is not enough to achieve victory. Even good theoretical knowledge of the leadership does not play a decisive role.

In order to win a military conflict, just like in old times, one needs a strong spirit, an unyielding will for victory, trust in oneself and one’s troops, decisiveness, bravery, inventiveness, flexibility and an ability to lead others. All this lacks severely in Assad’s army.

It is unclear what should be done to the half-rotten structure of the Syrian army. No amount of repressions, be it shootings, penal battalions or retreat-blocking detachments, can’t make it fight. There are no examples of this in military history.

Strict disciplinary measures may establish order in shaky units and detachments which fell under a spell of panic on the battlefield.

Arms could be used to neutralize the panic and flight instigators, shoot deserters, self-injurers, traitors and defeatists. But no war has ever been won with military tribunals and death sentences.

If the soldiers have no higher goal to protect their motherland, aren’t ready to sacrifice themselves, defend every position to the last drop of blood and look into the face of death while rushing in an attack, no amount of penal companies or retreat-blocking detachments can save such an army.

One the one hand, it would seam easy to completely demobilize (in other words, completely disband) the Syrian army and recruit a new one. In other words, restart the process of building up the country’s military.

On the other hand, the main problem is that new men are nowhere to be found in modern Syria. Any newly created army will naturally inherit all the malaises of the old SAA. There also is no definitive answer to a substantial question: who’s gonna pay for that?
It is impossible to win the war with such an ally as Assad’s army.

The militias can’t be fully relied on either. Hezbollah and the Iranians have their own interests.

This is why apparently the Russian military and political leadership shall have to take a drastic decision: end the Syria campaign before the end of 2016, withdrawing all troops and leaving only the military bases.

It is impossible to restore the constitutional order to Syria by solely military means without serious diplomatic, political, economic and propaganda efforts, as well as significant support of the ruined country by foreign states.

 

Russian colonel: ‘Syrian Army has known no military victories’

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/2...-syrian-army-has-known-no-military-victories/

 

While Assad cannot win as long as foreign states from the region and beyond are heavily backing the assortment of armed groups fighting him, those who want to oust him will not be able to win either. Indeed, the fight in Syria is not even about Assad. Assad can be dead tomorrow, but this fight will go on. And the fact that the morale and fighting abilities of most Syrian army units is low is doesn't change what I say either. In every war, the real fighting is done by a minority of combat troops and the rest of the soldiers take care of more mundane duties.

 

Diversity does not work in any Muslim area without the vast majority being of the same sect. Even then there is primitive tribalism and blood feuds.

Best to break Syria up into strong states based on religion and ethnicity. Seal off the worst States that are ISIS and other terror sponsors and kill any that stray outside their areas.

And of course never let anyone from Syria migrate to the civilized West as they too great of a risk to mankind.

- - - Updated - - -

 

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died fighting a mentality like yours... so how dare you say Syria should be broken up? The Syrians do not want their country to be broken up, and part of it given to the Kurds, ISIS, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan or anyone else. They love their free and tolerant society the way it was and despise those who have destroyed it for their own self interests like for instance: Turkey, Saudi Arabia Qatar, US, France, Britain, Israel, and Jordan.

So give it up. Syria will remain intact even if it takes them 20 years.

 

Tell you something Margot. I always thought the problem in that part of the world was Turkey, but I realize now that Saudi Arabia is an even bigger problem. This means peace can only come about when it's a bonfire ... and with all that oil, it will be a very, very big one.

I suggest you tell your friends to get off Assad's back before it's too late.

 

This general has just signed hus own death warrant or at least his own deportation decree. General Ivan Ivanovich should be packing his winter clothes or he should be picking out his casket.

 

Stop mistaking Russia for Ukraine, where the deaths of opposition members... and especially reporters are commonplace.

He is setting himself up though for some Ukrainian false flag attack. Anything I guess to demonize Putin ...as if it would get them anywhere.

 

Words are cheap.

 

Everyone outside Syria should STAY outside of Syria. The Syrians should just be allowed to kill each other like they are for Allah or whatever other reason they come up with. Anyone who steps in will become a reason for them to decide to kill THEM.

This is pretty much true for EVERY Middle Eastern Islamic nation and has been since Allah decided to show up.

 

It's also the history of Europe and every other part of the world. The Europeans are more proficient at it and have bigger guns. Oh well, that's what progress does.

 

That worked so well with Yugoslavia, and when we brake it up, then the minorities in those parts will want to break up, and so it goes.

 

I agree with the article that the Syrian forces alone cannot win as they are fighting not just a civil war but also a guerrilla war which even at the onset had seriously reduced Syrian manpower.
But the Syrian army does have a reasonable chance of winning with Russo-Iranian support.
Also barrel bombs aren't just barbaric; they are useless except as psychological weapons at the expense of the lives of non-combatants.

The notion of Syrian partition is undesirable at best although that they might be a different prospect with Rojava.
Also Syria was not as free and tolerant as some may suggest particularly if you read the Syrian constitution although it less discriminatory since the changes in 2012 and It also had problems with police brutality.

 

Ayup....them Euros used to do lots of killin' each other and anyone else too. Then they growded up and stopped doin' it.

Someday the Middle East will calm down as well........Someday.

 

The Syrians are uable to unite their country, its nice they dont want in broken but it already is and setting borders might be the only chance to stop the bloodbath,
And Israel wont take a piece of it, Turkey will and the Kurds probebly.

 

Syria has been a sprawling mess for eons. There is no way for all these groups to coexist in peace and harmony unless there is very strong leader with large popular support---or like with Saddam Hussein----someone with an iron fist to keep the different sects from fighting each other.

Syria is not unlike all the primitive pre-state tribal groups that were in pre-colonial Africa and the Americas. These tribes were in a near-constant state of warfare as the tribes fought each other to gain and hold territory.

Strong Western powers were finally able to subdue the savages and finally bring lasting peace. Many of the native tribes were placed on their own semi-autonomous reservations. As of 2016, the Apache no longer fight the Zuni, and the Sioux no longer fight the Arapaho.

Pacifying the savages in Syria will be exponentially more difficult. As virtually no Muslims in Syria are tolerant people. If they were, then why are there no Christian Churches, no Jewish Synagouges and no gay resorts in Muslim areas?

 

Your beloved Muslims in the former Yugoslavia have been supplying their brother terrorists with weapons like those used in Paris.

But Yugoslavia does prove my point that vastly different ethnic groups do not like living in peace and harmony. So they had a nasty divorce 20 years ago.

 

Did they really grow up? Look at the barbarism of the Ukrainian government towards its own people, and the hatred the Poles and Western Ukrainians have for the Russians; the hatred Poland has for Ukraine; hatred the Croatians and Muslims have for the Serbs; hatred Albania has towards Greece and Serbia; hatred the English have for the Poles... and we could go on and on.

All they need now is a little instigation from Soros' NGO so they can start protesting, and once they do get a sniper to shoot at the crowd and then blame the killings on the police... This is how you start a war, and then you use the propaganda ministers to blame Vladimir Putin... that is if you want to start a big war.


What did I do again?

 

Rubbish. In Russia freedom of speech. Watch these election debates, couple of days ago, on the central TV the representative from the People's Freedom Party from 13:40 https://youtu.be/rcY8XohXDSg
- Putin the thief, we must to move away Putin, Putin the dictator etc... He have told 100 times negatively about Putin)

 

This is simple..the reason being is the Russians killed off a lot of these people to begin with..and the barbarism the ukies showing east Ukraine...they had good teachers from the Russians themselves...what comes around goes around...these are ethnic Russians stalin moved in during the holodomor ...so yes thanks for stalin you have this mess...don't look at Khrushchev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev, etc...thank you stalin!

 

Israel has already taken a piece of it and has no intention of giving it back ever. Areas rich with water are more valuable than areas rich with oil in that part of the world. You should know that as almost 20% of water Israelis use comes from the Golan Heights.

 

America has dropped atomic bombs on Japan, hundreds of thousands peace people have been killed... anyway Japan loves the USA. America bombed Dresden, hundreds of thousands peace people have been killed, anyway Germany loves the USA. Americans have killed several million Vietnamese, Vietnam loves the USA etc. People love wealth most of all, and on Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, Obama etc.
least of all concerns them...