Reports of Russian troops in Syria

In recent days, there have been several reports of Russian troops and vehicles fighting in Syria alongside Assad.

-Ynet says that a Russian expeditionary force has set up a forward operating base near Damascus, and thousands of military personnel and fighter jets are expected to begin showing up in the coming months.

Russia's also apparently reached an agreement with Iran to keep Assad in power as a buffer to prevent ISIS from spreading further east.

-State media cited by the Telegraph also supposedly shows Russian troops and vehicles already fighting rebels in Latakia. Other social media posts also seem to show Russian drones and aircraft photographed over Syria.



-Earlier in August, Bosphorus Naval News posted pictures of what seemed to be a Russian ship carrying military vehicles heading through Istanbul.

Spoiler

Of course, Russia has been supporting the Assad regime for a long time; that's not news. There have also always been wild-eyed reports about Russian invasions of Syria because the whole region is a clusterfuck of misinformation. But these reports are credible enough that the White House is "monitoring" them.


Discuss.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Yeah I'm really having a hard time getting particularly worked up over this. Is there some tactical reason why the area's really great or something?

You mean a strategic reason?

I think this is more about Russia being able to posture as a major power than any major benefit it gets from having its ally in power in Syria. If Assad does come out on top he will be even closer to Russia than he was beforehand, but Syria is no huge prize - it lacks oil (despite what a lot of conspiracy theorists think) and the naval bases are not that big. Its major geopolitical significance is that it contains a lot of Kurds and is thus a good cockpit from which to influence Iraq and Turkey, but Russia has little interest in pressuring either of those countries.

 

[Techpriest]

They should have made a Kurdistan long, long ago honestly. Those crazy bastards have been through enough shit already.

 

[AnOminous]

They should have made a Kurdistan long, long ago honestly. Those crazy bastards have been through enough shit already.

The problem is that its territory would be taken out of multiple existing countries, and those countries aren't very interested in ceding large chunks of their territory, any more than the U.S. is going to be giving back the Dakotas to the Injuns any time soon.

 

[Techpriest]

The problem is that its territory would be taken out of multiple existing countries, and those countries aren't very interested in ceding large chunks of their territory, any more than the U.S. is going to be giving back the Dakotas to the Injuns any time soon.

True, I'm more talking the post WWI carving up of the region.

Mind you the current Lakota/Dakota/Sioux population is fucking miniscule compared to the Kurdish one though.

 

[Big Nasty]

Quote from Russian keyboard warrior:

Now take Russia, Syria's legitimate government and Iran over Syria again. NATO has a total and humiliating defeat written on his war banner. Russia is now taking over from the US as the world's only superpower and the "peacekeeper" that define the new world order. The West is finally defeated. Not because of resources, but because its leaders, intelligence and efficiency. Sheep herd in thousands fleeing in panic now as a lone wolf charges!

 

[Dudeofteenage]

True, I'm more talking the post WWI carving up of the region.

It was even less likely then, because the people who would have had to have given up territory at the time were not just truculent local states but two recently-victorious world powers - namely France and the UK.* It's possible that Turkey could have been forced to give up its own slice of Kurdistan but the Turkish victory against the Greeks showed that Turkey, even though recently defeated in the World War, was still strong enough to resist a carve up of its territory even with a local power prepared to play proxy for the Entente - and given that there was no equivalent local power willing to do the grunt work of fighting on behalf of the Kurds, it was pretty much a dead letter.

I've seen a lot of schemes for re-drawing the Middle East's borders, but they all fall down at the first step - namely, that there's no way the existing countries, some of whom are very close US allies (e.g. Turkey) would stand for it. And even if they did stand for it, it's very optimistic to presume these newly minted states would be content within their own borders. There's a great deal of controversy over exactly where Kurdistan begins and ends, so even if Kurdistan were to appear as an independent state, it would very likely be almost immediately embroiled in a low-level ongoing border conflict with at least one of its neighbours.

 

[*Asterisk*]

The problem is that its territory would be taken out of multiple existing countries, and those countries aren't very interested in ceding large chunks of their territory, any more than the U.S. is going to be giving back the Dakotas to the Injuns any time soon.

Our record on Indians, including modern relations, are absolutely nothing to speak with pride or success on in any capacity. There are also a lot more Kurds in the Kurdistan region than there are Indians of all the tribes put together in the US, and they've been screwed over even worse in the last century than even our nations perpetually screwed over Natives.

The countries which control what would be Kurdistan are also nowhere close to offering the freedom of liberal democracies. I guess Irani Kurdistan isn't quite as bad as the other areas, but those in Irani Kurdistan still have to live in fuckmothering Iran.

 

[DuskEngine]

Quote from Russian keyboard warrior:

Red Web trolls gotta eat too, man.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

The countries which control what would be Kurdistan are also nowhere close to offering the freedom of liberal democracies.

So territorial integrity is a privilege that only belongs to liberal democracies? I presume then if the Kurds failed to create a sufficiently democratic state they could expect to be dissolved or partitioned in turn?

 

[*Asterisk*]

So territorial integrity is a privilege that only belongs to liberal democracies? I presume then if the Kurds failed to create a sufficiently democratic state they could expect to be dissolved or partitioned in turn?

Do you want more countries in the world which aren't liberal democracies?

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Do you want more countries in the world which aren't liberal democracies?

Yes of course I do, I hate democracy and love dictatorship.

Seriously though, I think history has shown fairly clearly that slicing up dictatorships doesn't often produce democracies.

 

[AnOminous]

Seriously though, I think history has shown fairly clearly that slicing up dictatorships doesn't often produce democracies.

It is also against bedrock principles of sovereignty that are one of the few things generally respected under international law, particularly a principle called uti possidetis juris, which basically means as a nation possesses territory under law, it is entitled to retain its territorial integrity.

This is arguably unfair, as much of the colonized world, particularly Africa, South America, and the Middle East, were basically divvied up by outsiders thousands of miles away who arbitrarily drew a line on a map with little regard for the interests of the people living on it.

However, the principle generally stands against irredentist claims, that is, claims of another nation, or a people, to own land that is currently within the borders of one or more other countries. As legitimate as the plight of such people often is, tearing up already existing countries to answer it is generally not considered acceptable under international law.

The right of the Kurdish people to self-determination still exists, but it will have to be recognized by some means other than tearing apart other countries that aren't going to put up with that anyway.

Sometimes, where the population is an enclave entirely within another country, like Indians in the U.S. or First Nations in Canada, this is by some limited form of home rule or some kind of autonomy, but where they're spread over multiple countries (like the Kurds or the Basque as another example), it's not quite so easy.

 

[*Asterisk*]

It is also against bedrock principles of sovereignty that are one of the few things generally respected under international law, particularly a principle called uti possidetis juris, which basically means as a nation possesses territory under law, it is entitled to retain its territorial integrity.

This is arguably unfair, as much of the colonized world, particularly Africa, South America, and the Middle East, were basically divvied up by outsiders thousands of miles away who arbitrarily drew a line on a map with little regard for the interests of the people living on it.

However, the principle generally stands against irredentist claims, that is, claims of another nation, or a people, to own land that is currently within the borders of one or more other countries. As legitimate as the plight of such people often is, tearing up already existing countries to answer it is generally not considered acceptable under international law.

The right of the Kurdish people to self-determination still exists, but it will have to be recognized by some means other than tearing apart other countries that aren't going to put up with that anyway.

Sometimes, where the population is an enclave entirely within another country, like Indians in the U.S. or First Nations in Canada, this is by some limited form of home rule or some kind of autonomy, but where they're spread over multiple countries (like the Kurds or the Basque as another example), it's not quite so easy.

The problem is the countries the Kurds are a part of now. Horrible fascist fucks like the Islamic State and Assad's Syria. Even the relatively democratic Turkey has been utterly brutal towards them. And when nations are incapable of providing large groups of their people with even the most basic human rights, they forfeit their claims to territorial sovereignty over said people. It happened in Ireland. It happened in South Sudan. It happened in the Middle East with the expulsion of the Jews in the late 40s. It happened with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. It happened in Yugoslavia.

Why shouldn't it happen here in the Mid-East?

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Why shouldn't it happen here in the Mid-East?

I wouldn't necessarily say it shouldn't. I just think that it's very unlikely to happen. It would require going to war with, at minimum, Turkey, and there's no way the public of the western democracies are going to consent to a war, complete with all of the accidental-bombing-of-hospitals (to use a shamelessly topical example) and body bags, for the principle of Kurdish self-determination.

 

[seagull]

There are reports that some of the missiles that Russia has been firing at Syria crashed in rural Iran instead, possibly with casualties. I'm kind of curious about Iran's feelings about this, seeing as they both are supporting Assad.
Source

 

[Dudeofteenage]

There are reports that some of the missiles that Russia has been firing at Syria crashed in rural Iran instead, possibly with casualties. I'm kind of curious about Iran's feelings about this, seeing as they both are supporting Assad.
Source

Iran explicitly supported Russia's deployment to Syria. Iran has invested a lot into the Assad regime, I doubt they're going to care if a few Russian missiles crashland in their boondocks if it means Assad has a chance of hanging on. I expect Putin got permission from Iran for the overflight - he wouldn't have got it from Iraq but Iraq doesn't have enough control over the north of the country to do anything about it.

 

[AnOminous]

There are reports that some of the missiles that Russia has been firing at Syria crashed in rural Iran instead, possibly with casualties. I'm kind of curious about Iran's feelings about this, seeing as they both are supporting Assad.
Source

They're probably going to let it slide, since no harm really resulted and they're on the same side.

Still, lol @ shitty Russian hardware not even hitting the right country.

 

[Tookie]

Iran explicitly supported Russia's deployment to Syria. Iran has invested a lot into the Assad regime, I doubt they're going to care if a few Russian missiles crashland in their boondocks if it means Assad has a chance of hanging on. I expect Putin got permission from Iran for the overflight - he wouldn't have got it from Iraq but Iraq doesn't have enough control over the north of the country to do anything about it.

I doubt the Iraqi government especially cares at this point, they've been turning a blind eye to Russian use of their airspace and they probably view letting Assad be propped up as preferable to an ISIS death orgy on their border.

 

[Bork Laser]

They're probably going to let it slide, since no harm really resulted and they're on the same side.

Still, lol @ shitty Russian hardware not even hitting the right country.

I honestly dont know who too believe in that. The US has a reason to make up shit about Russia and Russia loves to lie its ass off. I just find it funny a few days after the US accidentally bombed a hospital, they are reporting the Russians accidentally bombed their allies

 

[AN/ALR56]

I honestly dont know who too believe in that. The US has a reason to make up shit about Russia and Russia loves to lie its ass off. I just find it funny a few days after the US accidentally bombed a hospital, they are reporting the Russians accidentally bombed their allies

They're probably going to let it slide, since no harm really resulted and they're on the same side.

Still, lol @ shitty Russian hardware not even hitting the right country.

Shitty?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M-54_Klub

http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com.br/2015/10/russian-navy-breaks-seal.html?m=1

These missiles are basically vastly improved tomahawks with a supersonic stage before impact.

I really doubt this report,I don't the Russians are that stupid to field a badly designed missile or dumb enough to not properly train the crews before using it.