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The Best Way To Deal With Ukraine? Get Out

lesnoy — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:51:17 GMT

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-best-way-to-deal-with-ukraine-get-out/
The Best Way To Deal With Ukraine? Get Out
For the last month we have been told what a critical role Ukraine plays in our national security. It does not.
JANUARY 31, 2020|12:01 AM
BONNIE KRISTIAN
Whether President Trump tried to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to coerce the Ukrainian government into doing his personal bidding is one question. Whether he should be removed from office for it is another. But distinct from both those conversations—and deserving separate interrogation regardless of our views on Trump and his impeachment trial—is the matter of how the United States should relate to Ukraine.

To wit: Is defending Ukraine against Russian encroachment necessary to U.S. vital interests? Is Ukraine the last bulwark holding off Russian President Vladimir Putin from marching across Europe?

Get out of the dual clouds of impeachment drama and Cold War nostalgia and the answer is plainly “no.”

“Vital interests affect the safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and power position of the United States,” as MIT’s Barry Posen argued at The National Interest before the Ukraine and Trump questions became so entwined. “If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to ‘fall’ to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States.” That was true when Posen wrote it in 2014 just as it is true today, but Washington’s recognition of the point is far more needful now as impeachment has brought Ukraine’s position to fresh national attention.

The case for treating Ukraine as if it were a vital U.S. interest is a throwback to the Cold War’s “domino theory”: If Ukraine falls, Russia will advance. The contest is no longer communism vs. capitalism but a vague fight of autocracy vs. democracy in which, as former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor recently opined at The New York Times, “Ukraine is the front line.” The thinking is that unless Russia is forced to completely withdraw from Ukraine—and, implicitly, unless the United States and NATO, of which Ukraine is not a member state, do the forcing—Moscow will continue to expand its sphere of influence and be emboldened to further digital interference in Western politics.

The latter claim is more easily addressed: Online election meddling efforts are likely here to stay, and there is no reason to think a Russia chastened on the battlefield in Ukraine would decide to abandon its digital interference in American politics. No direct connection exists between the two, and social media subterfuge is very cheap. Far poorer and less powerful nations than Russia (to say nothing of non-state actors like terrorists) are fully capable of this sort of operation; Moscow can and almost certainly will continue to do it if desired regardless of what happens in Ukraine. If anything, a sense of weakness in conventional warfare might drive Russia more toward online meddling as a form of asymmetric warfare—but no matter Moscow’s reaction, the fact is that fighting Russia out of Ukraine will not solve this problem for the United States.

Expanding Russian influence also may be a near-term inevitability. The prudent step for NATO is to “tacitly acknowledge[e] the existence of a Russian sphere of influence, much as it did in 1956 regarding Hungary and in 1968 with Czechoslovakia,” Ret. Col. Andrew Bacevich, a military historian, has advised. This won’t feel like a bold strike for freedom, but neither does it abandon all hope of liberty in Russia or Russia’s near abroad, if recent history is any guide. After all, Bacevich notes, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are NATO members today, and the Russia of 2020 is a far less powerful state than the Soviet Union at its Cold War peak. Moreover, Moscow’s conventional military and economic power are easily outmatched by Western Europe; it is absurd to imagine that, after swallowing Ukraine, Putin will somehow gobble up the rest of Europe.

Accepting that Moscow will have influence in its region—see also Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war and opposition to the Islamic State, for example—likewise has the merit of declining to instigate great power conflict that, in the worst scenario, could turn nuclear. Crucial to the case for Washington helping to drive Moscow out of Ukraine is the assumption that global stability will otherwise suffer. But surely nothing can match the instability that would come of open conflict between the planet’s two greatest nuclear powers.

Russia is a declining power which feels threatened by NATO expansion and seeks to remain dominant in its region. The conflict in Ukraine, tangential for the United States, is important to Moscow. That imbalance of interests makes the situation dangerous: Moscow won’t back down, so risk of escalation is real.

For Washington and Kyiv, the wisest strategy is pursuit of an achievable peace with terms including an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Ukraine’s Donbass region, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion, and resumption of normal trade and diplomatic relations. Though inevitably built on compromise, such a peace could stop the bloodshed, preserve Ukraine as a sovereign and neutral state, calm Moscow’s alarm, and disentangle the United States from a conflict which was never ours to solve.

Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities and contributing editor at The Week. Her writing has also appeared at CNN, Politico, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Defense One,and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

How do you feel living in Russia

lesnoy — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 19:47:12 GMT

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-feel-living-in-Russia-Moscow-after-moving-from-a-developed-western-country/answer/Olivier-Vandebroucke
How do you feel living in Russia (Moscow) after moving from a developed western country?
Olivier Vandebroucke, studied at University of Namur (2011)
Answered December 16, 2019 · Upvoted by Yaroslav Mar, lived in Moscow (1995-2019) and Nikita Rogozin, lives in Moscow (1984-present)
Belgian here. Before living in Russia, I lived in France, Germany and, of course, Belgium.

When I moved to Moscow in 2014, I felt like I had stepped 20 years in the… future. You’ve got smartphone apps for everything, from pre-choosing your products at a grocery to managing your individual company. Public transportation is of a stellar quality. Even in provincial cities (I’ve spent a couple months in Perm, Saratov and Astrakhan), the last of the crappy-looking Stalin era apartment block has a 100mbps Internet connection for every tenant. Bank transfers are done within seconds, you don’t have paper checks that are processed in 3 days like in, for example, “developed Western” France. Shops are open ALL THE TIME (that’s why Russia has so little unemployment compared to Western Europe: our shops are opened from 9 to 18 with a 2-hour pause, so you hire one worker per task. Russian ones are opened from 8 to 22, or 24/7, which means that you hire 2 to 3 workers per task). Registering your SIM or credit card is lightning fast. I’ve never seen this sort of efficiency in Western Europe.

Why Trump Is Right on Russia

forester — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 13:07:16 GMT

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/why-trump-is-right-on-russia.html
By ANATOL LIEVENFEB. 14, 2017
DOHA, Qatar — Few of the Trump administration’s priorities have received as much criticism from the American foreign policy establishment as the president’s desire to improve relations with Russia. President Trump’s allegedly pro-Russian policies have been the subject of conspiracy theories and scandal.
This makes little sense. There are many good reasons for the United States to reach conciliation with Moscow on issues from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. The real question will be if Washington can control its own desire for global hegemony enough to make that possible.
Unlike China, Russia is not an emerging peer competitor to the United States. Russia is a regional power struggling to retain a fragment of its former sphere of influence. Moreover, it should be a natural ally of the United States in the fight against Islamist extremism. A reduction of tension with Russia would allow the United States to concentrate on more important geopolitical issues.

President Trump at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland this month. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Ultimately, the United States may have no choice but to work with Russia. The West’s previous strategy has run its course, as recent policy failures make clear. Plans to expand American support for the former Soviet countries ring hollow. The United States and NATO did not fight for Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014. They will not do so in the future. In these circumstances, holding open the possibility of NATO membership for these countries, as the West has done for years, is pointless. By the same token, the populations of the European Union — an organization wrestling with existential problems of its own — have no will to help Ukraine join their club in the foreseeable future. In Syria, the United States and its allies seem to be torn between wanting to unseat President Bashar al-Assad and wanting to contain the jihadists who oppose him. Russia, on the other hand, has made its position clear.

Repairing relations with Russia can begin in Ukraine. The parameters for such a compromise were laid out in the Minsk agreement of 2015, which committed Russia to disarm separatists in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine to draw up a new federal constitution granting enhanced autonomy to the Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region that has declared independence. The United States should work with Russia on a compromise for the Donbas, which should be demilitarized and secured by a United Nations peacekeeping force. Meanwhile, the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula should be accepted (since short of a world war there is no way Russia will give it up). Though the annexation shouldn’t be recognized legally, American sanctions on Russia should be lifted.

American and NATO officials like to claim that such a compromise would encourage Russian aggression elsewhere. This view is based on self-deception on the part of Western elites who are interested in maintaining confrontation with Russia as a distraction from more important, painful problems at home, like migration, industrial decline and anger over globalization.

A child with a map can look at where the strategic frontier between the West and Russia was in 1988 and where it is today, and work out which side has advanced in which direction. So it is necessary to recognize that over the past generation, Russia’s actions — though sometimes wrong and even criminal — have been overwhelmingly reactive to what the West has done. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is about Ukraine, a country of supreme historical, ethnic, cultural, strategic and economic importance to Russia. It implies nothing for the rest of Eastern Europe.

If, as many of the hawks in Brussels and Washington claim, Russia wanted to undermine and then invade Latvia, it would have done so after 2008, when the Latvian economy was in collapse and it would have been easy to create a crisis there. Instead, Moscow did nothing — the Russian government is well aware that any such move would bring Western Europe and the United States back together in hostility toward Russia.

If Russia does invade Latvia or one of the other Baltic States, of course, the United States and its allies would have to fight — and fight hard — to defend them. These countries are members of NATO and the European Union. To surrender them to Russian aggression would make the West look both morally bankrupt and geopolitical impotent. But it is hard to imagine any realistic situation in which this need will arise.

Eastern Europe is not the only arena where the American agenda has proved inept. In Syria, the United States and Western Europe have bungled the war. Here, too, Mr. Trump’s plans to cooperate with Russia would be a welcome change. Because of Russian, Iranian and now Turkish support, Mr. Assad’s Syrian state is not going to fall. If it is to be transformed in the future, negotiation with Russia and Iran will be necessary.

Iran is an essential ally against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. And that means that the White House will soon discover the dangerous inconsistencies in its policies. Both Mr. Trump and his recently resigned national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, have spoken of prioritizing the fight against the Islamic State. But by simultaneously expressing desire for a new confrontation with Iran, they have demonstrated that they do not actually understand the word “priority.”

Furthermore, barring an open Iranian violation of the nuclear agreement, no imaginable American concession to Russia would persuade Moscow to agree to new international sanctions against Iran. One reason is that Russia sees good relations with Iran as permanently in its interest, whereas the policy makers in Moscow know that American concessions may be withdrawn by the next administration.

China may be the other major sticking point. While he has moderated his stand somewhat in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has suggested he is prepared for a confrontation with China. But Russia will not play along. With a 2,600-mile-long border with China and a hopelessly outnumbered army, there is no way that Russia can be persuaded to adopt an outright hostile stance toward its neighbor. The furthest that Russia might go as a result of a better relationship with the United States would be to limit sales of its most sophisticated weapons to China, and perhaps to help seek a United Nations-brokered international compromise over the islands disputed by China and its neighbors.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has not opposed the United States out of blind anti-Americanism. In the former Soviet countries, Russia has defended what the Russian establishment sees — rightly or wrongly — as vital Russian national interests.

Elsewhere in the world, Russia has clashed with the United States for reasons that have often been shared by many Americans, and have often later been proved correct: opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime in Libya being the most notable examples. While Russia wants good relations with the United States, it will not lend blanket support to American global primacy. If that is what the Trump administration is hoping for, it will be sorely disappointed, and the latest attempt at reconciliation with Russia will fail.

Saudi Arabia's Oil War With Russia

forester — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 20:06:54 GMT

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-16/saudi-arabia-s-oil-war-with-russia
Oct 16, 2015 1:22 PM EDT
By Leonid Bershidsky
As President Vladimir Putin tries to restore Russia as a major player in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is starting to attack on Russia's traditional stomping ground by supplying lower-priced crude oil to Poland.
At a recent investment forum, Igor Sechin, chief executive of Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil company, complained about the Saudis' entry into the Polish market. "They're dumping actively," he said. Other Russian oil executives are worried, too. "Isn't this move a first step toward a redivision of Western markets?" Nikolai Rubchenkov, an executive at Tatneft, said at an oil roundtable Thursday. "Shouldn't the government's energy strategy contain some measures to safeguard Russia's interests in its existing Western markets?"

European traders and refiners confirm that Saudi Arabia has been offering its oil at significant discounts, making it more attractive than Russian crude. And, even though most eastern European refineries are now technologically dependent on the Russian crude mix, Russia's oilmen are right to be worried.

In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia sent half of its oil to Europe, but then the Soviet Union built export pipelines from its abundant West Siberian oil fields, and the Saudis switched to Asian markets, where demand was growing and better prices could be had. The Saudi share of the European crude market kept dropping; in 2009, it reached a nadir of 5.9 percent. Russia's share peaked at 34.8 percent in 2011. In recent years, Saudi Arabia slowly increased its presence, reaching a 8.6 percent share in 2013, but it had never tried its luck in Poland.

Like most of central and eastern Europe, Poland has long been a client of Russian oil companies. Last year, about three-quarters of its fuel imports came from Russia, with the rest from Kazakhstan and European countries. Poland, however, is at the center of efforts to reduce the European Union's dependence on Russian energy. Since Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine last year, Poland, Ukraine's neighbor, has increased military expenditures and other efforts to shore up its security. It's working with its smaller neighbors, too. On Thursday, it announced an agreement with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to build a natural gas pipeline to and from the Baltic States, ensuring their future independence from Russian gas supplies.

In this context, a new and reliable supplier is a godsend. As for the Saudis, they need to expand outside Asia where demand is falling.

The Kremlin and Russian oilmen have long sensed Europe's appetite for energy diversification and have sought new markets. Until the 2000s, almost all Russian oil exports were to Europe. By last year, that share had shrunk to less than two-thirds:
oildiv

In the Asian markets, Russia became a serious competitor to the Saudis. In May, Russian crude supplies to China even temporarily surpassed those of Saudi Arabia. Now that the Saudis are involved in a ruthless price war for market share -- not just with U.S. shale oil producers but with all suppliers who are not members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries -- they are moving into Russia's traditional market.

This could turn into a more active shoving match between the world's two biggest oil exporters, which already are at odds over the Syrian conflict. So far, OPEC and the International Energy Agency predict modest demand expansion next year, but if the Chinese economy continues performing worse than expected, that market may become too small for the Russians and the Saudis. Both economies are oil-dependent and retaining market share is a matter of survival.

Oil competition is a dangerous undercurrent in Putin's Middle Eastern policy. The Russian leader hopes that when its ally Iran re-enters the global oil and gas market, Russia will somehow share in the profits, perhaps through new pipelines across Syria. He also wants to stop the Saudis from establishing export routes in Syria. Now that Russian energy supremacy in Europe also is at stake, Putin's determination to resolve the Syrian conflict on his terms can only grow.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net

Protests in Cologne after assaults; Merkel pledges new laws

forester — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 21:57:35 GMT

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/09/protests-in-cologne-after-assaults-merkel-pledges-new-laws.print.html
Published January 09, 2016
Associated Press
COLOGNE, Germany – Women's rights activists, far-right demonstrators and leftwing counter-protesters took to the streets of Cologne on Saturday to voice their opinions in the debate that has followed a string of New Year's Eve sexual assaults and robberies blamed largely on foreigners.
Amid the heightened public pressure, Chancellor Angela Merkel's party proposed stricter laws regulating asylum-seekers in the country -- some 1.1 million of whom arrived last year.
Police said that around 1,700 protesters from the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement were kept apart from 1,300 counter-demonstrators in simultaneous protests outside the city's main train station.
PEGIDA members held banners with slogans like "RAPEfugees not welcome" and "Integrate barbarity?" while the counter-protesters pushed the message "refugees welcome."

Specifics of the New Year's Eve assaults and who were behind them are still being investigated. The attackers were among about 1,000 men gathered at Cologne's central train station, some of whom broke off into small groups and surrounded women, groping them and stealing their purses, cell phones and other belongings, according to authorities and witness reports. There are also two allegations of rape.

The PEGIDA demonstration Saturday was shut down early by authorities using water cannons after protesters threw firecrackers and bottles at some of the 1,700 police on hand. Police said four people were taken into custody but no injuries were immediately reported.

Earlier, hundreds of women's rights activists gathered outside Cologne's landmark cathedral to rally against the New Year's Eve violence.

"It's about making clear that we will not stop moving around freely here in Cologne, and to protest against victim bashing and the abuse of women," said 50-year-old city resident Ina Wolf.

In response to the incidents, Merkel said her CDU party on Saturday had approved a proposal seeking stricter laws regulating asylum seekers.

Merkel said the proposal, which will be discussed with her coalition partners and would need parliamentary approval, would help Germany deport "serial offenders" convicted of lesser crimes.

"This is in the interests of the citizens of Germany, but also in the interests of the great majority of the refugees who are here," Merkel told party members in Mainz.

However, she also reiterated her mantra on the refugee issue, insisting again "we will manage it."

Bonn University political scientist Tilman Mayer said he doesn't see the CDU proposal as either a change of course, nor one likely to dispel many Germans' concerns.

"This is just a building block in a chain of statements from the government and also the chancellor," he said on Phoenix television.

Though Merkel has decried the assaults as "repugnant criminal acts that ... Germany will not accept," they provide fodder for those who have opposed her open-door policy and refusal to set a cap on refugee numbers.

Influential Hamburg broadcaster NDR said in an opinion piece posted online Friday that such crimes threaten to push xenophobia toward the "middle of the population" -- which could lead to a backlash against refugees.

"And who is to blame mainly?" the editorial asked. "These young, testosterone-driven time bombs with their image of women from the Middle Ages."

Despite the harsh rhetoric, the case is not yet that clear and the investigation is ongoing.

Of 31 suspects temporarily detained for questioning following the New Year's Eve attacks, there were 18 asylum seekers but also two Germans and an American among others, and none were accused of specifically committing sexual assaults.

Cologne police on Saturday said more than 100 detectives are assigned to the case and are investigating 379 criminal complaints filed with them, about 40 percent of which involve allegations of sexual offenses.

"The people in the focus of the criminal investigation are primarily from North African countries," police said. "Most are asylum seekers or people living illegally in Germany. The investigation into if, and how widely, these people were involved in concrete criminal activity on New Year's Eve is ongoing."

Witness Lieli Shabani told the Guardian newspaper the attacks appeared coordinated, saying she watched from the steps of the city's cathedral as three men appeared to be giving instructions to others.

"One time a group of three or four males would come up to them, be given instructions and sent away into the crowd," the 35-year-old teacher was quoted as saying. "Then another group of four or five would come up, and they'd gesticulate in various directions and send them off again."

National broadcaster ARD called the attacks a "wake-up call" that illuminates the difficulty that lies ahead for Germany of integrating the newcomers.

URL

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/09/merkel-party-calls-for-tighter-laws-after-cologne-assaults.html

Face of Islamic State member who executed his own mother in Syria

forester — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 21:40:05 GMT

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/face-of-islamic-state-member-who-executed-his-own-mother-in-syria-34346117.html
Saturday 9 January 2016
Ali Saqr al-Qasem shot his mother Lena, 45, in the head with an assault rifle
08/01/2016 | 09:25
An Islamic State militant executed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she had encouraged him to leave the group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.
The woman in her 40s had warned her son that a U.S.-backed alliance would wipe out Islamic State and had encouraged him to leave the city with her.
She was detained after he informed the group of her comments, according to the British-based Observatory, which monitors the war through a network of sources on the ground.
Citing local sources, the Observatory said the 20-year-old man executed his mother on Wednesday near the post office building where she worked in front of hundreds of people in Raqqa, a main base of operations for the group in Syria.

Ali Saqr al-Qasem
The Islamic State group, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq, has executed hundreds of people it has accused of working with its enemies or breaching of its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.

The Observatory reported on Dec. 29 that Islamic State had executed more than 2,000 Syrian civilians in the 18 months since it declared its "caliphate" over the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. They included people killed on the grounds of homosexuality, practicing magic and apostasy.

It was not possible to independently verify the latest report

Reuters

Free Syrian Army decimated by desertions

forester — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 02:33:05 GMT

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/free-syrian-army-decimated-desertions-151111064831800.html
In Aleppo, the rebel group has weakened as fighters leave due to low pay, poor conditions and fragmentation.
Adam Lucente, Zouhir Al Shimale | 11 Nov 2015 11:50 GMT |
listen to this page
Aleppo, Syria - In 2012, Mohammad Matoh joined the Free Syrian Army. A year later he deserted finding work at a fast-food restaurant in Aleppo.
"Five members of our family were with the FSA. Now two are in Turkey after getting injured and two are still with the FSA," he told Al Jazeera.
Matoh, 27, recalls other friends leaving as well. One of them, he said, "was forced to leave as a result of the inadequate salary, which was at best 18,000 Syrian pounds [$95] a month". Matoh himself claims his salary started at only 8,000 Syrian pounds ($36) a month, before rising slightly.

The FSA, once viewed as a viable alternative to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has seen its power wane dramatically this year [AP]
Ahmad Jalal, 21, a field commander in the FSA, admitted that the salaries "can be as low as $50 a month, and sometimes salaries are not paid due to [lack of] support".

The FSA, once viewed by the international community as a viable alternative to the rule of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has seen its power wane dramatically this year amid widespread desertions.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Aleppo, Syria's largest city where many FSA soldiers are leaving the group, citing inadequate pay, family obligations and poor conditions.

In the past month, Russia's bombing campaign against Syrian rebel groups and the FSA's rejection of Russian invitations to participate in negotiations have further weakened it, raising questions about the group's place in any future settlement.

On Wednesday, reports of a new Russian 'peace plan' were revealed. The eight-point proposal cites a constitutional reform process lasting 18 months that would be followed by presidential elections. According to the plan, 'certain Syrian opposition groups' should participate in the Vienna talks, expected to take place next Saturday.

Formed in August 2011 at the start of the Syrian civil war, the FSA comprises mainly defectors from the Syrian military. The group is viewed as moderate compared with the Islamist rebel groups that later emerged.

The FSA began suffering battlefield setbacks as early as 2013, including some to Islamist rebel groups in northern Syria. This prompted some members of the US House Intelligence Committee and the Obama administration to lose faith in the FSA.

A new US-backed alliance of rebel groups, called the Democratic Forces of Syria, was launched this year and only includes groups focused on fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is waging war against both the regime and several rebel groups throughout Syria.

The new Democratic Forces of Syria alliance does not include the FSA, which is concentrating on fighting the Assad regime.

But observers say that US support has not yet waned.

"I don't think that the US has moved away for groups it has previously supported," said Ammar Waqqaf, a member of the British Syrian Society and a frequent media commentator on Syria.

However, its exclusion from the Democratic Forces of Syria may lead to further isolation for the FSA. Waqqaf noted that "the US badly needs someone on the ground whom it can support and could mount some sort of a serious challenge to ISIL, hence the formation of new groups, including the Democratic ones".

Comprised mainly of defectors from the Syrian military, FSA is viewed as moderate compared to Islamist rebel groups [REUTERS]

While no data exists on the number or rate of FSA desertions, Matoh speculates that 50 have left FSA units in the Aleppo area in 2015 alone. Fewer have defected this year due to the closing of the border with Turkey.

The fighter needs to feed his family and the amount [of his salary] is sometimes not enough to do so or live on.

Ahmad Jalal, FSA field commander

Other FSA fighters quit to provide for their families or because of the gruelling battlefield conditions.

"After the intensification of bombing in [Aleppo], fighters in bombed areas had to get their families out after injuries to them and shelling of their homes," explained Jalal, the field commander. "The fighter needs to feed his family and the amount [of his salary] is sometimes not enough to do so or live on."

Matoh recalled that days on the battlefield "would last 12 hours in cold conditions and with dust all over the place, after which we'd return to the base hungry. Then we'd go to sleep, get up and do it again the next day".

Matoh, for one, does not fear retribution from the FSA, and has lived outside their command for more than two years. The calm tone Jalal takes towards defected fighters demonstrates that retribution might not be of major concern.

The desertions have taken a toll on the FSA's strength. Determining the total number of FSA fighters is difficult, said Columb Strack, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at global information company IHS.

"The FSA is made up of more than 2,050 factions," he said. He estimates that FSA groups in southern Syria have about 35,000 fighters. He noted that estimates for northern FSA groups prove harder because the FSA "is so fragmented there".

Wayne White, a scholar at Washington's Middle East Institute and a former deputy director of the US state department's Middle East intelligence office, agrees. According to him, while the FSA's exact numbers are hard to determine, they are weaker than their Islamist counterparts.

"The FSA, compared with various other rebel groupings, such as ISIL, al-Nusra, and various moderate Islamist factions is relatively weak. The current total of FSA combatants in Syria is not precisely known," he told Al Jazeera.

FSA units vary greatly in their equipment and battle-readiness, Strack added. "There are small local factions armed with AK-47s, and other US-backed ones armed with tanks." Some FSA units, he said, consisted of "localised militias of 10 to 20 guys who don't move out of their village", while others are "much more capable factions of former officers".

A stalemate currently prevails in Aleppo, with no side making notable advances [AP]

Desertions from the FSA have been common in Aleppo and northern Syria more generally, where Islamist groups such as the Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, are more powerful.

Wayne attributes the relative strength of Islamist rebels to better arms and funding, plus Western reluctance to fund rebels. "The US and the West became resistant to supplying secular rebels with large quantities of arms because they feared such arms could fall into extremist hands," he told Al Jazeera.

Moreover, he noted that the better funding, arms and strength of Islamist rebels had made "far more recruits - and even many moderate combatants - join such groups", since 2012, whereas the FSA is currently dealing with many desertions.

ISIL in Syria confronted by new alliance of opposition groups

Some FSA-allied commanders agree that fragmentation is hurting the group and weakening its image in the eyes of the international community.

"We are not unified and therefore will not get stronger," said Suhaib, a commander in the Jaysh al-Islam coalition who declined to give his full name. "In my opinion, the international community's perspective that the FSA is weak and ineffective on the ground is because of the FSA's failure to unite all the factions."

Jaysh al-Islam is part of the Islamic Front, one of the main rebel groups and an ally of the FSA. It has acknowledged an alliance with the FSA, despite high tensions at times. Suhaib serves in one of their Aleppo area units.

A stalemate currently prevails in Aleppo, with no side making notable advances.

On Wednesday, however, the Syrian army achieved what many observers considered a military breakthrough when it recaptured a northern military airbase that had been besieged by ISIL since 2013.

"Army and the armed forces eliminated large numbers of ISIL terrorists and make contact with the forces defending Kweires Airport in Aleppo's eastern countryside," the Syrian Arab News Agency said on Tuesday.

With no end in sight to the desertions and disunity, and attacks from both government and other rebel forces, the FSA faces challenging times ahead.

"If we don't work together," declared Suhaib, "we'll die together".

Source: Al Jazeera

U.S. intelligence: Russia will launch attacks in Syria

forester — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:21:06 GMT

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-russia-syria-20150925-story.html
By Brian Bennett and W.J. Hennigan contact the reporters
September 25, 2015, 11:52 AM |Reporting from Washington
A secret U.S. intelligence assessment provided to the White House predicts that the Kremlin will order military strikes in Syria to help prop up President Bashar Assad's embattled government and to stop westward advances by Islamic State and other rebel groups..

The airstrikes would be conducted by more than two dozen Russian warplanes that were surreptitiously flown to Syria over the last week.

U.S. officials said the Russian pilots turned off their planes' transponders to avoid detection, and hid by flying in close formation with Russian AN-124 Condor cargo flights, which used commercial air corridors over Iraq and Iran.

Russian-made surveillance drones began flying over embattled parts of northwest Syria this week to help identify potential targets, U.S. officials said.

The drones fly daily missions above Latakia and Hamah provinces, which are nominally held by Assad's forces, and Idlib province, which is largely controlled by rebel factions.

A Russian-made helicopter hovers over the airport in Latakia, Syria, on Sept. 24.
(Joseph Eid / AFP/Getty Images)

Islamic State is not active in any of the areas, however, raising questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions in the multi-sided Syrian civil war.

President Obama will sit down with Putin on Monday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The two leaders have not held formal talks in two years, but the White House is increasingly concerned about Russia's growing involvement in Syria.

The intelligence assessment was given to Obama as part of his briefings for the meeting, which was announced Thursday.

According to U.S. officials, 28 Russian fighter and ground attack jets were flown to a civilian air strip in Latakia province since last Friday.

The strip was upgraded over the last three weeks with a new air control tower, fresh tarmac and other modifications to handle the Russian warplanes, according to U.S. officials. Cargo planes delivered 16 helicopters, artillery and tanks two weeks ago.

The airstrip is about 35 miles from Russia's longtime naval base at Tartus on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

“The jets are ready to strike at any moment,” said a U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the intelligence. “There is nothing stopping them from delivering airstrikes at this point.”

“The equipment we’ve seen out there is not strictly defensive,” said another U.S. official.

New satellite imagery also indicates recent construction at a weapons storage site inside the base, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank.

Aerial images showing newly installed modular housing for 2,000 troops, and nine modern T-90 ‎tanks, indicate that Russia is using its own soldiers and equipment, and not Syrian troops, to defend the base. The Syrian army operates older Russian tanks.

Warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition have been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria since September 2014. The Obama administration remains committed to ousting Assad from power, but is not attacking government-held positions.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke by phone last Friday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, in an effort to ensure U.S. and Russian warplanes don't inadvertently clash in Syria as Moscow and Washington pursue separate political goals.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Carter warned that Russian airstrikes on anti-Assad forces could amount to "pouring gasoline on the civil war in Syria. That is certainly not productive from our point of view."

Pentagon planners still don't know whether Russia intends to defend territory controlled by Assad, to help his security forces reclaim captured cities and towns, or to try to defeat Islamic State and other extremist groups who control much of the country.

According to U.S. intelligence, the Russians have moved 12 SU-24 Fencer and 12 SU-25 Frogfoot attack planes to the air base. They are designed to fly low over a battlefield to eliminate ground targets.

Four SU-30 Flanker jets, also delivered to the base, are designed to fight other planes. Surface-to-air missiles also were detected.

"The Russians are going all in on behalf of Assad," said Christopher Harmer, ‎a former Navy aviator at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington. Citing recent commercial satellite imagery, he added, “The signal is they are here to stay."

Twitter: @ByBrianBennett

Twitter: @wjhenn

Lowdown: What Russian Citizens Really Think of Putin and Why

forester — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 21:55:52 GMT

http://lifearmy.cn/news/lowdown_what_russian_citizens_really_think_of_putin_and_why/2015-09-26-26

The stats show that the average bus driver shares sentiments similar to the average academic when it comes to Kremlin policies. Why?
Robert Legvold
September 25, 2015
For an outsider, understanding contemporary Russian reality in any season is never easy—one senses, not even for the Russians themselves. They certainly disagree over many of its aspects. I’m in Moscow for much of this fall teaching graduate students at MGIMO and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in a video-connected classroom, as I was last fall—soaking up as much as I can, reading, watching, walking, meeting people.
Things feel different from last fall. The leadership, politicians, businessmen, analysts and the public—to the extent that it rises above its indifference to the political world—appear to have accepted the desiccated, friction-laden, arms-length U.S.-Russian relationship as the “new normal.” And it’s with something of a shrug. But then that also seems to be happening in the United States.
Television, unlike last fall, is not saturated from morning to night with lurid coverage of the violence in Donbas, although the political fights and protests in Kyiv get plenty of attention. Ukraine has been replaced by the migration crisis in Europe, and now competes with the menace of ISIS. Most Russians who follow current events think Ukraine is sinking into a “frozen conflict”—a ragged ceasefire appears to be holding, and neither Moscow nor the Western countries have any desire to see it collapse. The public, however, as measured in polls in mid-August remain more skeptical. Seventy percent believed renewed military conflict was likely or very likely; only 21 percent thought not.

As for ideas of what to do next or a larger Russian strategic agenda in Ukraine, one well-connected Duma deputy told me they don’t exist: Russia is simply sitting back and watching events unfold in Kyiv. It will focus on helping to create and defend functioning social, economic and military institutions in the shattered portions of Donetsk and Lugansk controlled by the separatists. But few expect the provisions in the Minsk II agreement aiming at a political settlement to work, nor do they see Moscow straining to make them work. Maybe Moscow will be minimally unhelpful in economic relations with Kyiv, if Kyiv helps ease Crimea’s electricity and water-supply problems. As for public attitudes toward Ukraine, the ratio between “very favorable” and “very bad” has flipped 180 degrees since January 2014 (then 66 percent were “very favorable;” in May 2015, the latest figures, 26 percent; “very unfavorable,” in January 2014l 26 percent; May 2015, 59 percent).

Scenes of thousands of desperate refugees besieging Europe and the turmoil in the Middle East, as one senior scholar said to me, provide further support for the Putin regime. (An MGIMO student asked his Fletcher counterparts: “Why do you call it the Putin regime? Do you call it the Obama regime?” They then stressed the widespread public support for the government.) Watching all this distress, the average Russian credits Putin with sparing the country the same, and for most Russians, having been through the 1990s, stability ranks very high. Added to the deepening and spreading sense of nationalism (the “krim nash” [“Crimea is ours”] tee-shirts are less on display, but the sentiment persists and the 85 percent support for the annexation has scarcely budged since March 2014), together with the strong tendency to blame Russian woes on the United States, this sense of Putin’s leadership as the best guarantee of continued stability helps to explain Putin’s popularity. Many Russians will tell you that it is not really at 83 percent, as the polls show, but almost none doubts that it is genuinely high. The fly in the ointment is that no other politician’s ratings are half as high, nor is the government’s, nor are those of government policies, although approval of the direction in which the country is headed last month was 55 percent, down nine points from June, but 14 points higher than when Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. (And it might be pointed out, considerably higher than similar polls in the United States and most European countries.)

Thus, if in some U.S. quarters, people look at $40-50 barrel oil, a ruble-dollar ratio of 70:1, negative growth of 4 percent this year, and slow or no growth for at least three more years, with attendant inflation and the erosion of Russians’ disposable income, and assume discontent must already be building below the surface, the evidence is difficult to come by. True, some very smart Russian analysts have assured me that something has to give. As one put it, sooner rather later either the lid will blow off with unpredictable consequences or Putin and his colleagues will make a U-turn, and, at least at the level of atmospherics, try to release pressure from Russia-Western tensions. But they are in a minority, and a far larger number, both partisans and critics of those in power, either smugly or in resignation, expect things to stagger on pretty much as they are.

Russia, of course, has a history of appearing stable until it isn’t—of looking stolidly immobile, until bunt, that strong Russian word for explosive rebellion, erupts. Maybe somewhere deep in Russia’s fraught existence that potential is slowly congealing. Dmitri Trenin, one of Russia’s most thoughtful observers, has written that, if Russia does not surmount the current crisis (of the Russian economy) within a crisis (of Russia-West relations), not only the regime, but the country are in peril.
To the outsider, however, the signs are not there yet. This summer, when asked whether mass protests were likely in their city or region over the “declining quality of life and in defense of civil rights,” 76 percent of Russians said “no,” 18 percent said “entirely possible,” 10 points lower than in February 2014, and, if they did take place, 87 percent said they wouldn’t join them. When in August asked whether western sanctions were a problem for them, 27 percent said, “yes,” and 67 percent, “no.” Sixty-eight percent supported ignoring Western demands, and 20 percent favored concessions to ease sanctions. As for the Russian government’s counter sanctions on Western food imports, 67 percent supported them, 21 percent opposed them, and 58 percent thought they had worked in gaining Western “respect” for Russia.

That latter proposition is not an insignificant part of what many Russians believe Putin has restored to Russia. Respect, for the average Russian, a sensitive Russian friend said to me, is very important, because “over the centuries they have been denied it: denied it by those who ruled them, denied it by those who bossed them, denied it even by one another, and denied it by the outside world.” As Carnegie Moscow Center’s Andrei Kolesnikov recently wrote:

A five-minute conversation with most Russian citizens will reveal that they still feel totally defenseless in the face of pressures from big and small bosses, utility companies, fire and tax inspectors, courts, the police, military draft boards, and even random street patrols by Cossacks. At the same time, the post-Soviet Russian citizen seems satisfied by (or pretends to be satisfied by) a feeling of belonging to something big and faceless, a crowd that shares pride in itself and its leader.

The negative side of this with direct bearing on relations with the United States is how Russians answer the question, “Is the United States using Russia’s current difficulties to turn it into a second-rate power and a mere supplier of raw materials for the West?” As of June 2015, 86 percent of respondents agreed, 44 percent of them “entirely,” and only 7 percent disagreed. Lest the reader think these results are simply a function of the fog of anti-Americanism dominating contemporary Russian discourse, in 1998, during the Yeltsin period, 75 percent agreed, and 17 percent disagreed. When recently asked whether Russia’s relations with the West can be “genuinely friendly” or will “they always be rooted in mistrust,” 24 percent selected the sunny choice, 62 percent the other.

The average Russian bus driver, let alone the average villager tending her garden, of course, has even less influence over national politics and the course of Russian foreign policy than the average Boston Red Sox fan or a South Dakota farmer has over U.S. politics and foreign policy. But, if from this obvious fact the U.S. political establishment concludes, as the New York Times columnist, David Brooks, did earlier this year, that the Russian challenge is essentially “Putin, a thug sitting atop a failing regime”—a saltier way of expressing what appears to be a widespread impression in Washington and the national media—the real challenge will go unrecognized. That is so, because the surveys I have been quoting included not just bus drivers and villagers, but a fair portion of the middle-class business community, political elite and no doubt leadership at the top. They may have somewhat more sophisticated and polished responses, but their sentiments break down in basically the same way.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/lowdown-what-russian-citizens-really-think-putin-why-13933

Military Parade in China Gives Xi Jinping a Platform to Show Grip on Power

forester — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 02:22:50 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/world/asia/china-military-parade-xi-jinping.html
By CHRIS BUCKLEYSEPT. 3, 2015
HONG KONG — Thousands of troops stood arrayed at perfect, hushed attention around Tiananmen Square. Hundreds of Communist Party elders, foreign dignitaries and diplomats looked on. It was then, on live television, that President Xi Jinping stepped forward to announce that the Chinese military, on proud display to mark 70 years since the end of World War II, would lose more than a 10th of its personnel.
“War is the sword of Damocles that still hangs over mankind,” Mr. Xi said in a speech at the start of a vast military parade on Thursday in central Beijing. Mr. Xi indicated that he wanted to show other countries — many of them wary of China’s growing military strength — that they had nothing to fear from the procession of tanks and missiles that rumbled down Chang’an Avenue while fighter jets roared overhead.

Pomp and Power at China Military Parade
In Beijing, 12,000 troops staged a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. By JONAH M. KESSEL on Publish Date September 3, 2015. Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters. Watch in Times Video »
The military parade featured 12,000 troops and a cavalcade of gleaming high-tech weaponry.China Announces Cuts of 300,000 Troops at Military Parade Showing Its MightSEPT. 2, 2015
The martial spectacle that will rumble through the capital on Thursday could not come at a better time as the Communist Party grapples with a slumping stock market and fears that a slowdown could spur social unrest.As China’s Economy Falters, Military Parade Offers Chance to Burnish ImageSEPT. 1, 2015
video Highlights of China’s Victory Day ParadeSEPT. 3, 2015
But the highly public manner of Mr. Xi’s announcement that 300,000 military personnel would be demobilized, China’s largest troop reduction in nearly two decades, carried another implicit message. He was demonstrating his grip on the military and on the party, amid economic squalls and a grinding anticorruption campaign that have left some wondering whether he and his agenda of change — including in the People’s Liberation Army — were faltering, several experts said.

Tanks on parade Thursday in Beijing. China's military forces have traditionally been weighted toward land forces. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
“It’s Xi in command,” Andrew Scobell, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation who studies the Chinese military, and who was in Beijing during the parade, said of the announcement.

But he added that Mr. Xi faced challenges in forcing through his broader program to overhaul the military, which would reshape its command structure and knock away the longstanding power of regional military commands across China.

“If it does happen, then this is confirmation that Xi Jinping is the most powerful commander in chief China has seen since Deng Xiaoping,” Mr. Scobell said. “This is about showing Xi as the strongman.”

Mr. Xi did not give any details of the troop reductions. But a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defense later said the cuts would be completed by the end of 2017 and were intended to clear the way for deeper changes, and a leaner, more agile military.

“The focus of these military personnel reductions is on shrinking forces with outdated equipment and slimming down bureaucracy and noncombat personnel,” said the spokesman, Col. Yang Yujun, according to the Defense Ministry’s website. “In the next step, we will roll out new reform measures one after another, actively and steadily advancing reform of national defense and the military.”

The cut announced by Mr. Xi would shrink China’s military personnel to two million, the biggest reduction since 500,000 were demobilized in 1997, said the China News Service, a state-run agency. The Chinese military would remain the world’s largest, compared with the United States’ active-duty force of 1.4 million.

The reduction would come mostly from ground forces, with more resources going to the navy, the air force and the Second Artillery Corps, which holds China’s land-based ballistic missiles, including nuclear warheads, said David Finkelstein, the vice president of CNA, an organization in Arlington, Va., that specializes in military analysis.

“This decision was to be expected,” a retired Chinese major general, Xu Guangyu, said of Mr. Xi’s announcement in a telephone interview. “The modernization of weapons and equipment is encouraging a reduction in personnel numbers.”

Whether Mr. Xi can build on the new troop cuts to change how the Chinese military operates will test his political mettle. His plan to reorganize and reinvigorate the military is part of an ambitious program announced in 2013 that also includes an overhaul of the economy. Since then, the government has instituted some changes, but many observers say the moves have often been hesitant and opaque, failing to match Mr. Xi’s bold promises.

Military choir members at Tiananmen Square on Tuesday. The official purpose of the commemoration was to mark 70 years since the end of World War II. Credit Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Turmoil in the Chinese stock market and worries about an economic slowdown in recent months have also dented Mr. Xi’s reputation, while a sweeping anticorruption campaign that allowed him to purge high-level enemies has left many in the party elite grumbling, nervous or both.

But Mr. Xi conveyed confidence on Thursday. Wearing a traditional suit of the kind favored by Mao, he addressed the troops and greeted the crowd while standing in a Red Flag limousine. Later, he watched the procession from a viewing stand overlooking the square with his two predecessors as president, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin.

The weapons displayed included China’s growing collection of advanced missiles, among them the “Dongfeng-5B, an intercontinental strategic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads, and the Dongfeng-21D antiship ballistic missile,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Since he became head of the Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 2012, Mr. Xi has closely associated himself with the People’s Liberation Army, while also pursuing corruption investigations that have reached into its topmost ranks and allowed him to appoint new commanders. Gen. Guo Boxiong, who for a decade until his retirement in 2012 was the military’s most senior serving officer, was officially placed under investigation in late July.

The new troop cuts are likely to be part of a broad restructuring of the military that may include new joint command arrangements to better coordinate land, sea, air and other forces, M. Taylor Fravel, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the Chinese military, said in an email.

“Xi would not announce the size of the reduction publicly if a plan for how to achieve the reduction had not already been formulated, so the announcement indicates that reforms are definitely underway,” Professor Fravel said.

After the Communist Revolution in 1949, the People’s Liberation Army emerged as both a bulwark against external threats and a domestic guardian of the party’s power. Its numbers have always been heavily weighted toward the land armies stationed across China to maintain domestic control.

But in recent decades, China’s leaders have tried to invest more in air and naval forces to project influence abroad and assert the country’s claims to disputed islands and waters. And Mr. Xi has indicated that he wants to accelerate that shift.

The Chinese government does not issue regular statistics on its military forces. But experts estimate that the army has about 1.6 million personnel, the navy 240,000 and the air force 400,000. Many of its recruits are youths from the countryside, or just out of high school, lacking the skills that are needed to work well in a modern military equipped with computers.

“The Chinese have come farther than any other military in the last decade,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “But nobody recognizes the deficiencies of the P.L.A. more than China.”

In March, the Chinese government announced that the defense budget for 2015 would be 10 percent higher than the previous year’s outlay, consolidating China’s position as the world’s second-largest military spender, though still far behind the United States.

But with economic growth slowing, dismissing hundreds of thousands of soldiers could add pressure on the government. Decommissioned officers and former soldiers unhappy with their job prospects and welfare have been a persistent source of protests outside government offices.

Instead of sending decommissioned officers and soldiers into the civilian work force, Mr. Xi could draw them into domestic security forces, especially the People’s Armed Police, which was founded in the early 1980s from former units of the People’s Liberation Army.

“What might happen is just a reshuffle,” said Mr. Scobell, the expert at RAND. “The bulk of that may be transferred to another paramilitary force, whether as border guards or elements of the People’s Armed Police.”

Unlike his recent predecessors, Mr. Xi had some experience in the military before his elevation to the leadership. He started his rise through the party as an aide to the minister of defense for several years starting in 1979, when China was smarting from a brief but disastrous war with Vietnam.

He has often visited military units to rub shoulders with soldiers and to push the military to embrace change while praising it as a stronghold of party power. In disputes with Japan, Vietnam and other neighbors over rival maritime claims, Mr. Xi has also signaled that his government will back its demands with force.

“They know that if they have to win any war, it must be a high-tech war,” said Che-Po Chan, an assistant professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. “It must be an advanced strategy now; it can’t be a so-called people’s war.”

The government’s efforts to attract more university graduates to the military through higher pay and better conditions have helped lift the educational levels of recruits in recent years, he said. But Mr. Xi faces the challenge of paying for further improvements as the economy is expanding at its slowest pace in a quarter-century.

“To support their high-tech strategy, they need to have continuous economic development,” Professor Chan said. “The recent economic challenges might be a problem. But we need more time to judge.”

Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing, and Javier C. Hernández from Hong Kong.

A version of this article appears in print on September 4, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Parade Gives Chinese Leader A Platform to Show Grip on Power. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe