THE DOWNING OF THE IL-20. NO EXIT PLAN NEEDED.

            From day one, just about everyone who knows the region had the same comment over the Russian deployment into Syria. It’s the same comment most major nations hear when they walk into a failed country in the middle of a Civil War. “If you go in, how are you going to get out”? Exit plan? What is the “Exit plan”? I’ve worked on these “plans” before and trust me when I tell you, the War Fighters push away from the table and simply say, “the political objectives are not designed nor determined here”. Exit Plans also have a fatal flaw. The Enemy or in most cases with a Civil War, Enemies, gets a vote!

 It’s easy to go into a area with superior firepower and training and defeat a rag-tag Simi- military force, forces, but it’s much more difficult to design a plan that leads to the lights coming back on, water running again, schools reopening and people walking about freely and therein lies the problem with Syria, well…….Syria…Iraq…..Afghanistan…..Yemen…..Libya and so on and so on!  But, and this is a huge “but”, that difficulty of having an Exit Plan only applies to nations that care if they even have such a plan. The Russians left Afghanistan when it was clear they had no capability of controlling the nation. It wasn’t about sticking around until Afghanistan was rebuilt. It was worse than that. For the Russians Afghanistan was a crushing military defeat. The tactic that had allowed them to win countless wars, had been used to defeat the very nation that perfected utilizing one’s terrain to drain the enemy. The Soviet Union entered Afghanistan with a military designed to fight and win World War III. It was not designed nor trained to fight a sustained, guerrilla war. Simply put, The Soviets got into Afghanistan, but they had no real way out. By the way. How long has the US been there now? Yes, modern militaries can be placed inside a conflict, but can the political leadership find a way out?

So, that brings me back to the topic of Russia and Syria. From day one, I’ve said this time and time again, Syria to Russia / Putin / is not about it’s Civil War. Syria is about Eastern Europe and NATO. Let The Donald call Putin and say, “lets talk about NATO in Eastern Europe and then you can tell me about your plans for the Middle East”, and the minute the phone hangs up, everything about the region just changed. Tell me the reason Moscow has been courting Turkey has nothing to do with the weakening or collapse of NATO and I will sell you some Swampland In Arizona. Yes, the port there is important, but the word should be, was. That port was important in the Cold War, but warfare has changed and the requirements for that new warfare have changed as well. Moscow has not invested the time and money into Syria for the sake of one port. If you say the reason is oil and gas, then you get half credit. Yes, those are vital issues to the Russians, but It’s not the reason they have to eat losing hundreds of “Little Green Men” and now the IL20. Russia is there to apply pressure and a great deal of pressure. It’s the reason they support Iran as well. Cut a deal with Putin over NATO and the Mullahs will hang from the cranes in the public squares within weeks. By the way, if you don’t think Moscow doesn’t have it’s hooks into the IRGC, then you really….really…don’t understand how they operate or what Putin’s job use to be.

Okay, here comes the part I’ve been leading up to. Many nations, Western ones, worry about “exit plans”. Moscow has no “exit” plan for Syria or Iraq or Iran. If they all need to be tossed on the trading table for the sake of Eastern Europe’s “Westernization”, then so be it. All Moscow will ask for is the ability to have a vote on the sale of oil and gas from the region. Let them have the ability to manipulate the selling price of fuels and they leave the area like they did Afghanistan, without a “plan”.  Schools, water, power, streets….. someone else can worry about those details. Russia is not going to spend Billions on an area it no longer needs to control. By the way, they are not the only ones that think that way. Wait until you see the Dragon in a real conflict. They will reset the bar.

The Russians have lost citizens and equipment in the Syrian Civil War. They have deployed systems only to have them poorly managed, so poorly that it cost them their own military member’s lives. Yes, the Syrian military is a 21^st Century version of Egypt and the Soviet Union. They might blame Israel for the event of the IL20, but that’s for face saving purposes, and did you notice how quickly the allegations against the French disappeared? The game here is not about Syria. The game is about NATO. If the West / US / continues to press the integration of NATO forces into Eastern Europe, then the Russians will continue to allow the Syrian Civil War to fester. They will continue to allow Iran to supply Hezbollah. They will wait to see just how long before the IDF strikes Iranian assets enough times in Syria to make Iran over react. They will wait until the US’s actions to deny Iranian movement through Iraq into Syria reaches a point that a serious escalation takes place. Yep. Moscow is patient. At some point, and it could be soon……very soon, the events in the region will become very dangerous to more than just the people of Syria, Iran and Iraq. When that time comes, that phone call I told you about may come from Putin and not The Donald! As for what the area looks like after words. I can hear Putin now. “Exit Plan????? We don’t need no stinking  exit plan”!!!!