Between France and Russia, It Appears That the US May Adopt a Syria Strategy

Putin & Obama Talk, Wingnut Heads Explode

Notice that I did not use the modifier, "New".

Up to this point, the US has not had a plan beyond, "Freedum bomz!" up to this point.

Notice for example, how the US has hit Syrian government oil and energy facilities, but has done nothing to ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever fuel convoys that have typically exported through Turkey.  (One assumes that this was because the Turks wanted to keep their profits from this trade, and we needed their airbases)

This has changed:

The U.S. claims it wants to hit the Islamic State but in one year of bombing it never really touched one of its biggest sources of income. Hundreds of oil tanker trucks are waiting every day at IS distribution points to smuggle oil to Turkey and elsewhere. Only one such distribution point was ever bombed and that attack was  by the Iraqi air force.

Now the Russian President Putin played some "name and shame" at the G-20 meeting in Turkey and, lo and behold, the problem gets solved.

The Obama administration recently claimed it would increase attacks on the most expensive Syrian oil infrastructure which is owned by the Syrian government but under IS control. But it said it would still not hit the large truck gatherings.

While the American-led air campaign has conducted periodic airstrikes against oil refineries and other production facilities in eastern Syria that the group controls, the organization’s engineers have been able to quickly repair damage, and keep the oil flowing, American officials said. The Obama administration has also balked at attacking the Islamic State’s fleet of tanker trucks — its main distribution network — fearing civilian casualties. But now the administration has decided to increase the attacks and focus on inflicting damage that takes longer to fix or requires specially ordered parts, American officials said.

The obvious target to stop the oil trade is to hit the trucks. Without trucks the other infrastructure is useless for IS as the oil can not be sold. With trucks destroyed the men behind the smuggling will lose all profits and leave the business. The "civilian casualties" argument does not hold. There could be warnings to avoid human damage or one could consider that these oil smugglers are dealing with terrorists and thereby accomplices. The real U.S. reluctance to hit the oil smuggling might be out of deference to the Turkish government which of course profits from such oil transfers.

………

Putin provided that information and the photos yesterday. Obama must have been deeply embarrassed and pissed. Suddenly, a day after Putin exposed the U.S. reluctance to hit IS where it is needed, a big truck assembly was bombed:

Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.

MoA's analysis is a bit simplistic, it is far more likely that this is happening because the US does not want France to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which would mandate a heightened involvement by the military alliance, probably involving the dreaded "boots on the ground".

There is also the not so subtle call by French President Holland for the US and Russia to get their sh%$ together:

French President Francois Hollande says he will meet with U.S. and Russian leaders to discuss pooling their efforts to destroy the Islamic State group.

Hollande, speaking at a special joint meeting of the upper and lower houses of parliament in the Palace of Versailles, said he had requested meetings with Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

Hollande said he wanted the talks "to unify our strength and achieve a result that has been too long in coming." Hollande called for "a union of all who can fight this terrorist army in a single coalition."French President Francois Hollande says he will meet with U.S. and Russian leaders to discuss pooling their efforts to destroy the Islamic State group.

Hollande, speaking at a special joint meeting of the upper and lower houses of parliament in the Palace of Versailles, said he had requested meetings with Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

Hollande said he wanted the talks "to unify our strength and achieve a result that has been too long in coming." Hollande called for "a union of all who can fight this terrorist army in a single coalition."

Reading between the lines, this translates to, "Enough with the Cold War nostalgia tour, we have sh%$ to do."

Again, I think that the threat of an Article 5 invocation hovers above this statement.

It does appear that there appears to be some improved communication between US and Russian intelligence agencies:

The head of the CIA is "determined" to keep conversations open between the intelligence communities of the United States and Russia and wants to see relations between the two nations "enhanced" to prevent future terrorist attacks, particularly from the Islamic State group, commonly known as ISIS or ISIL.

John Brennan also said the "ISIL threat demands" an "unprecedented level of cooperation" among the international intelligence community, mere hours before the Obama administration announced new rules easing the sharing of intelligence with France in the wake of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.

Speaking Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brennan broadly addressed the need for greater information-sharing around the globe, but saved his most expansive comments for a partner that may surprise those who have watched the relationship between the US and Russia disintegrate since Russia's invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2014.

This is a major turnaround for the US state security apparatus, which had, until recently, seemed to be longing desperately longing for a return to the Cold War.

Tu-160


TU-22M3


TU-95

While I do not whether this is anything more than talk by the US, the Russians appear to be escalating in Syria:

Russia sent nearly 40 heavy bombers and escorting fighter jets on a massive air raid in Syria. Moscow has now showed off almost all of its aerial arsenal in strikes in the embattled Middle Eastern country.

Flying from bases in Russia, 25 Tu-160, Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 bombers launched more than 30 cruise missiles and dropped dumb bombs on targets in Idlib and Aleppo provinces. A dozen Su-34 and Su-27SM fighter jets escorted the bombers on their mission.

“The targets destroyed include command posts that were used to coordinate ISIL activities [and] munition and supply depots in the northwestern part of Syria,” chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State terrorist group.

This is a big deal, but it is far less involved than a similar strike would be if conducted by the United States.

The Russians are about 1½ hours from their targets, while US bombers would likely sortie from  Diego Garcia, which is about a 7 hour trip, and would require multiple refuelings.  (The B-2s, would likely deploy from the US, which would be a 20+ hour trip one way)

Most significantly, the Russians provided advance notice to the US of the air strikes, so as to preventa possible incident:

For the first time since it began military operations in Syria, the Russian government alerted the United States of planned airstrikes, Defense Department spokesperson Peter Cook said Tuesday.

Cook also said the Russian airstrikes were concentrated on targets from the Islamic State group, best known as ISIL or ISIS. That is a change from Pentagon statements in the past, which have identified the vast majority of Russian strikes as attacking non-ISIS forces aligned against the government of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

"In this instance, their most recent airstrikes, [Russia] did give us advanced notice through the memorandum of understanding that is in place," Cook told reporters.

Russia appears to have launched a wave of new strikes in Syria over the last 24 hours, including cruise missiles and the first ever use of the Tu-160 strategic bombers in combat operations.

The US and Russia reached an agreement on deconfliction in October, but details on the agreement have been kept quiet, something the US said was at the behest of the Kremlin. This is the first time Russia has communicated directly to the US about incoming strikes, however.

Hopefully this presages a thawing, and I further hope that indicates a path forward for the US that actually has a modicum of coherence, but I am not holding my breath.