You Reap What You Sow.

Saudi Arabia's Asharq Al-Awsat reports today (Google does a decent job translating from Arabic):

وأكدت المصادر أن إسرائيل نفذت فقط غارتين جويتين على سوريا بعد تلك الحادثة، بتنسيق مع القوات الروسية. وفي كل مرة، كان الروس يبدون تبرمهم من هذا النوع من العمليات. والمعروف أن حكومة بنيامين نتنياهو فشلت حتى الآن في تسوية الخلافات مع موسكو. فالرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين صد مطالب نتنياهو للقائه على الأراضي الروسية طيلة الشهرين الفائتين. وعندما وافق على لقاء نتنياهو في باريس، الأسبوع الماضي، خلال حفل عشاء ضمن الاحتفالات بذكرى مائة سنة على الحرب العالمية الأولى، أصر على أن يكون اللقاء قصيراً (ربع ساعة) ومقتضباً، وذلك بعد جهود إسرائيلية وأميركية كثيرة مع موسكو. ومع أن نتنياهو اعتبره لقاءً مهماً ومفيداً، فإن بوتين اعتبره لقاءً عابراً، مؤكداً أنه من غير المرجح أن يلتقي معه مرة أخرى في المستقبل المنظور. وتبين من تقرير داخلي في المؤسسة الأمنية في تل أبيب أن «روسيا أوضحت لإسرائيل بطرق مختلفة أن الوضع الذي كان قائماً في السابق قد انتهى، لأن عمليات تل أبيب في سوريا تضر بمشروع موسكو الأساسي في المنطقة، أي استعادة الحكومة السورية سيطرتها على معظم أراضي البلاد، لضمان مصالح روسيا الاقتصادية والأمنية في سوريا. وهي تستغل حادثة الطائرة بكل قسوة لتحقيق أهدافها». وأكد التقرير أن الجانب الروسي بدأ يستخدم لهجة صارمة، تتسم بعض الأحيان بفظاظة، في اتصالات التنسيق مع العسكريين الإسرائيليين عبر ما يسمى «الخط الساخن»، الخاص بمنع وقوع الحوادث 

Translation: The sources confirmed that Israel carried out only two air raids on Syria after that incident, in coordination with Russian forces. Each time, the Russians began to sign these kinds of operations. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to settle differences with Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin blocked Netanyahu's demands to meet him on Russian territory for the past two months. When he agreed to meet with Netanyahu in Paris last week at a gala dinner marking the 100th anniversary of the First World War, he insisted that the meeting should be short (one-quarter of an hour) and brief, following many Israeli and American efforts with Moscow. Although Netanyahu considered it an important and useful meeting, Putin considered it a passing meeting, asserting that he is unlikely to meet with him again in the foreseeable future. "Russia has made it clear to Israel in different ways that the situation that existed in the past is over, because the Tel Aviv operations in Syria are harming Moscow's basic project in the region, that is, the restoration of the Syrian government's control over most of the country's territory, To ensure Russia's economic and security interests in Syria. It is taking advantage of the aircraft incident with all its cruelty to achieve its goals. " The report said that the Russian side began to use a strict tone, sometimes crude, in coordination contacts with the Israeli military through the so-called hotline, the prevention of accidents in Syria, between the parties.

This report comes on the heels of my publisher sending me yesterday a link to Bernhard's (MOA) excellent piece on Israel, which I read by then anyway. But Asharq Al-Awsat reports also on a significant increase of the sorties by Russian VKS' aircraft in Syrian air space and all this fits perfectly the pattern which I (well, forgive me, but can I feed my ego at least once in a while?) predicted within hours of IL-20s tragedy. This brings up this ever important issue (and I will soon resume my Russia's Non-Jewish History series of posts) of true influence of alleged Jewish (Israeli) lobby on Russia. As I already stated not for once, Russia's foreign and defense policies are immune to any kind of influences which contradict Russia's crucial national interests. Russia is interested in stable and secure Israel but not at the expense of own strategic interests. For sure, Israel has her own legitimate security concerns but the main question is what is the extent of this legitimacy? I don't know, I am not a specialist in the region, but the issue of new settlements and, inevitably, of Golan Heights will come up once Syria recovers most of her territory and will start in earnest postbellum restoration. 

Theoretically, Russia can guarantee Israel's survival but it will come with a lofty price tag. Obviously, for Israeli and American Likudniks (neocons, Israeli-firsters, what have you), who got used to kick US Congress around any way they want, such a disposition where they have to actually listen and not talk is huge humiliation, but, I hope, even most delusional Zionists both within Israel and US power structures, must recognize that Russia does have many strategic options, they--don't. As Asharq Al-Awsat reports:

 كشفت مصادر سياسية في تل أبيب أن القيادة العسكرية الإسرائيلية تبدي قلقاً من فشل القيادة السياسية في تسوية الأزمة القائمة مع روسيا في الشهرين الفائتين، منذ سقوط طائرة التجسس «إيل - 20» في 17 سبتمبر (أيلول) الماضي. وتقول إن استمرار هذه الأزمة يتسبب في تناقض مصالح مع روسيا، وبات يضيق على إسرائيل في خياراتها القتالية ضد الوجود الإيراني في سوريا، وحتى ضد نشاط «حزب الله» في لبنان.

Translation: Political sources in Tel Aviv revealed that the Israeli military leadership is concerned about the failure of the political leadership to resolve the crisis with Russia in the past two months, since the fall of the spy plane "El - 20" on 17 September. She says that the continuation of this crisis is causing a conflict of interests with Russia, and is narrowing Israel's choice of combat against the Iranian presence in Syria, and even against the activity of "Hezbollah" in Lebanon. 

The name of the "crisis", of course, are two (or three--who knows how many) battalions of S-300PMU2 Favorit and the evolution of this whole situation could serve as a classic example of the  Force In Being translating into tangible (geo)political results. Russia really wanted to work with Israel but Israel, obviously, grossly overestimated own capabilities, especially against the background of gross underestimation  of Russian ones--a scenario replayed constantly in the US which still remains enamored with Israel's military "achievements" against traditionally weak Arab military and para-military formations. Things are  changing, though. I will go out on a limb here and speculate that Syrian Arab Army's prestige among Arabs is extremely high, as is prestige of Hafez al-Assad, who defied Israel, international Jihad, Turkey and NATO. Syria IS emerging as a pivotal state of Arab secular nationalism whether intentionally or not--but it is the fact of life. Read MOA's review on some indications of that. Long term geopolitical, economic and cultural ramifications of that for the region are immense and Russia is only happy to benefit from that, apart from satisfaction from playing a key role in saving the last secular Arab state. Just one small fact: 

 SCAC signs the LOI with Alexcina LLC/15.11.2018

One may argue, justifiably, that this is so far only LOI--sure, but the breakthrough for Russian civilian aircraft into rich Gulfies' market is a good sign, considering the fact that Russian weapons there are in high demand and Qatar and Saudis are really interested on getting their hands on S-400s. For Arabs, in general, the fact of containment of Israel is huge and it matters that Israel was contained by Russian weapons. Israel has only herself to blame for finding herself in such a conundrum but, and this is my profound conviction, Israel got used to beating on weak and exerting an immense influence on the United States internally so much, that she simply forgot that Russia is not the United States and it is inconceivable to have THIS in Russia, in the US--it is a normal occurrence. And that is the difference Israel should understand and the faster she does it, the better it will be for all parties involved. In the end, you reap what you sow.

On Syria (Mostly).

I usually try to stay away from Syrian war for a reasons that I do not have enough time and resources to look at the maps and study operational situation there--for that there are many bloggers who do just that and I gladly use their information. But the more important reason is that I know for sure that nothing what is stated by Arab sources on the ground usually corresponds to the reality. Not for once I wrote that Arab militaries and modern combined arms warfare simply do not mix well. I wrote about it here and here, with Colonel Murahovsky's interview. Now, it is very reputable Russian military analyst Colonel Khodarenok who speaks out:

Ex-Russian Colonel: Why Moscow Has Not Succeeded in Syria After 1 Year of Involvement

It is an excellent piece which does address reasons of why Arabs can not fight modern war. Here are some good quotes:

Further Syrian army success does not look good. The quality of army management is the most important question today. Since 2004 Syrian army fired a lot of officers and generals who got their education in USSR and Russia. There are almost no Russian-speaking officers in Syrian army today. Officers who got their education in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the West were preferred. They were the main core of Syrian army.

Or this:

Syrian army has no centralized supplies. Everything is decided by the army commanders. They get the money and decide what supplies they are going to buy. These commanders are the richest people in Syrian army. Central staff has no influence over their decisions regarding supplies. This is the reason why Assad army is so poorly supplied. Syrian young people leave the country from the conscription. There is a minimum help for the family members of dead or wounded solders. Such families are extremely poor.

  

Well, it never changes with Arabs. Now that the Russian military advisers left Syria (and rightly so) the Syrian Army (SAA) is left to its own devices in doing what they never could--serious strategic and operational planning, and effective command and control. So, nothing really new here but, in the same time, Khodarenok is a bit on a grim side here. While he is correct in this assessment: 

A huge amount if intelligence forces (mukhābarāt) make the situation even worse. There are four kinds of it: national, military, air and political. There is also the National bureau of security. The corruption in Syrian intelligence forces is awful. They force the whole population and army to pay an enormous amounts of bribes.

The truth is--it can not be any other way and it is true across the board in Arab world. And, I think, there is still military solution in Syria and there are signs of the so called "rebels" (terrorists supported by West) being at the end of the rope. But then again--all of this is a typical Arab affair and it never changes and to understand its military logic is usually beyond the grasp of "western" mind. But in the end, I have to disagree with Khodarenok in most dramatic fashion--the title of his article is plain wrong. I am just not in the mood to list all strategic benefits Russia already got in her mostly air campaign in Syria and by any metric, the circumstances favor Assad and SAA, thus providing for the main political objective of Russia's interference in Syria--survival of secular and friendly to Russia regime. In the end, it is the opinion of one man, there are many others which differ drastically (in Russian).

In related, that is military, news: Russia continues to slowly abandon Brigade structure and now resurrects yet another division, this time 42nd Motor Rifle Division, stationed in Chechnya. Another proof of a complete military bankruptcy of Serdyukov's "reforms", as well as people who promoted and supported them--namely people from SVOP such as late Vitaly Shlykov.  Incidentally, these were this new 42nd MRD's units which gave Georgian Army, trained and updated by NATO and Israel, an abject lesson in combined arms warfare on 08/08/08 in a brief Russian-Georgian War.