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ISIS vs. Russia?
Yesterday, CNN reported that US intelligence believes ISIS brought down Kogalymavia Flight 9268 — the Russian airline out of Egypt — with a bomb. This morning, the WSJ reports that the United Kingdom has come to the same conclusion and has grounded all flights out of Sharm El Sheikh, where the flight originated (there are thousands of Brits there currently on holiday). Several people on Ricochet have previously speculated that the plane was taken out by a bomb near its tail and the Islamic State has already claimed credit for this deed.
My question is this: what does it all mean? Is this the beginning of a broader campaign by ISIS against Russia? Will Chechnya once again explode in violence and terrorism? Will Russia become more involved against battling ISIS, at least to save face?
On a cynical note, I wonder if this is all a good sign. ISIS is striking Russia, which means they must fear them. Does that mean they’re going to ignore us? Can ISIS wage an effective terror campaign against the Russians and should we actually passively encourage it just to spite them? Or perhaps we can try to make common cause with the Russians against ISIS, using this terrorism as a pretext for joint action. After all, we must ensure the safety of intercontinental airline travel, an attack on one passenger plane is an attack on all passenger planes, etc., etc. I’m sure the irony of this would not be lost on the Russians.
So, is this the beginning of a concerted effort by Russia to eliminate ISIS, or just further proof that the world is spinning into chaos while Obama fiddles away on his global warming fiddle?
Published in Foreign Policy, Islamist Terrorism
So am I the only one who thinks that whoever blew up that plane has a whole world of hurt coming after them? Russia is run by a ruthless former KGB officer. (I wouldn’t at all be surprised if Putin has killed people with his own hands.) He seems the type of fellow that will not tolerate being embarrassed or threatened. He will want payback.
iWe @ #21 had an interesting and different perspective. I hope he’s right and I’m wrong.
In a Real Politik aspect this is good thinking. Which is our biggest threat, a re-emergent Russia or a vast, violent Muslim Empire (sorry for the rudimentary use of language here)? I think that Russia, being that they will likely have ROE that will allow them the ability to kill many, many more of these people than we would, I say let them fight as long as possible. Bleed Putin for a little while and bleed ISIL too. Win, win.
Valiuth, they don’t know the answers either.
For the moment. After Syria resolves, will Hezbollah align with Russia? The Iranian alliance with Russia is similar to other alliances with the old Soviet regime – India for example. These are alliances of convenience, not philosophy, dogma or even geographical or economic interdependence. Iran needs Russian weapons and pilots. After they buy weapons, acquire them from the Chinese and get the pilots, then what? Right now Russia has the best available weaponry by far – but that is a shifting situation.
Russia needs higher oil prices. This may keep them aligned for a while. But the geography, regimes and histories of Iran and Russia make them natural adversaries . . . like China and Russia back in the 1970’s or perhaps right now?
This is a long war. It requires a long view. Long view.
It also requires us to define whether what is unfolding is an existential risk, a risk to vital American interests, or a non-vital risk (humanitarian, trade, access). Before you stick your toe too deep in this water, we need to assess how hot it is, how far we intend to put our toe in, what is considered deep enough, can we achieve it and how we can get our toe back out?
A very viable approach. It requires a lot of clever dodging, but clearly a viable option. Make Russia the bait.
There’s a war on, Russian leadership knows bullets go in both directions. If there’s a payback mission on the list, it won’t replace military missions.
At this point, I’d be happy to see anyone fighting (and hopefully defeating) ISIS.
Russian payback usually involves capturing leaders, cutting off strategic bits, and mailing them back to their families.
This can be effective, but it works best when fighting an organization, not a rabble. Russian failure in Afghanistan shows that victory is not easy to arrange, even when one is entirely ruthless.
I had cooked up this idea when Iran was getting sucked into Iraq when ISIL really hit the scene. The idea went something like this: we continue to feed the “moderate” Syrian opposition weapons, encourage Russia–behind the scenes of course–to do the same with Asad and Iran, get all three sides to start killing each other. No American footprint, we get to publicly chastise Putin in front of our European friends, and jihadists of all stripes get to die.
Again, you look at this from our side. You don’t look at it from the Russians’ side. “we are not threatening to invade Russia like the USSR wanting to invade additional free societies.”? How does Russia know this? They have seen NATO expand up to Eastern Europe, then all the way up to one border (Baltic states), and finally Ukraine was moving so it would expand up to another. NATO is deploying ballistic missile defense in Europe. Etc.
And your last sentence about the ‘Peace treaty’ is kind of naive isn’t it? Like nations never make these kinds of treaties with full expectation that circumstances will never arise as to invalidate the treaty. If you are Russia and want very badly for Ukraine to forego their nukes, you make a treaty like this. If anyone in the West thought it really meant anything except wishful thinking, they are fools. The West knew it would never defend Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. The Ukrainians even knew this, deep down, I am sure.
This is right. They are very disciplined. A plane down may alter the bombing intensity or change the targeting, but the primary military mission to secure Assad takes precedent over everything else.
Also, we assume the Russians have good intelligence and effective means. They are good. Not as good as us – but good. Their equipment is effective, but not always. Their pilots are getting better by the day. But, they are not infallible.
And, they don’t care that much about collateral damage. We do – which can narrow the advantages we enjoy.
My thought, exactly. Nobody expects certainty, but we can’t even make confident theories for now about how this conflict will unfold. We shouldn’t act blindly. We should be preparing for possible developments, though.
One possibility is that Russia secures its puppet in Syria and at least holds ISIS near the former border with Iraq. Since that border has been mush for a long time now, Russia could push it.
Another possibility perhaps is that ISIS receives enough recruits and support to maintain multiple fronts and bleeds into yet another area. Tom seems correct that ISIS has much bigger plans than a typical nation-state would. If Turkey is destabilized, perhaps ISIS will have an opening for prolonged disruption, if not conquest. Another possibility is that ISIS, upon gaining enough territory that it must establish regional governors and more systemic government, will focus more internally and try to consolidate its gains.
I’m no expert on this stuff, so perhaps that’s all wrong. But the general point is that we should be prepared to pounce when an opportunity presents itself, but shouldn’t wade into a conflict with no clear options.
In any case, there’s no point advising President Obama. He doesn’t care what Republicans think. The next President will inherit a very different situation.
Change the enemy’s enemy.
Your hate is quite evident. As is your inability to see Russian perceived self-interest in some of their actions, only evil incarnate. Russia had been losing, losing, losing control all around it’s previous sphere of influence over the last decades. Resenting that would be a normal human reaction. If you don’t give them some credit for this kind of reaction, you are hate-blinded.
Constantinople was the Second Rome. Istanbul is the Islamic zombie city of the animated Byzantine corpse. It’s a reminder that Islam conquers yours and makes it theirs. “Your churches will make lovely mosques. Now prepare your daughters for the slave markets”. Istanbul is not Constantinople. It’s just using the body.
Thanks, JM, for the defense, but I was not offended. Just wish his arguments were stronger in his behalf. NATO on Russia’s border is very much like (note, I didn’t say “exactly like”) Mexico joining the Warsaw Pact. That perspective needs to be digested by the V’s and BCl’s here at Ricochet before they begin another anti-Russian screed.
PS. My views here, for those curious, probably is colored by three factors: 1) PatBuchanan’s musings on these matters, 2) my son teaching English in Moscow and giving me no evidence that the Russian culture is depraved, in the way that Putin’s policies seem to be by Western lights, and 3) I was a cold warrior during the Cold War. I have no illusions about the Russkies – but dehumanizing them is not seeing reality clearly. They are not evil incarnate (as ISIS is); their values and interests just are not aligned with ours.
ISIS isn’t Afghanistan. There is no swamp here for Putin. The difference between the US and Russia is that if Russia really wants to, it will kill ISIS to the last man. They have their man in the region, Assad, ready to re-exert control over the whole state. It’s win-win for the Russians. They get the good internationalnal pub for smashing the Islamic State, the gratitude of Syria, Israel (yes, Israel), and the Gulf States, a secure base of operations in Syria with their firm ally, and of course, they get to make Barack Obama look like a weak fool.
The US does half-measures in war. Russians do not.
Question: V’s and BCl’s? Definition please.
The values of the Russian people are irrelevant. The only values and priorities that matter are Putin’s, and the generals who support him.
I’ve spoken with people who were in Iran before Khamenei. They tell me the Iranian people were very hospitable. That doesn’t change the fact that a monster is in charge and we must deal with that monster.
Our government and military deals with other governments and other militaries, not with the peoples those organizations claim to represent.
James: I guess the question is do we think we should lead or not. At the end of World War II we took upon ourselves the task of being the leading democratic power. We were the only ones at the time capable of this task. This mantle came with a heavy burden of being proactive, not simply reactive to world events. This was in light of WWII where out more conservative nature let event play out until war came to us. The consequence of this was that by the time we were compelled to act much of the world had been burned down. Today we face this issue again.
Do you believe our general stance should be one of being proactive or reactive? Are we a leader or a bystander. I don’t think it is bad being one or the other, but it is good to know which we want to be. Also I don’t think being a leader means having to rush into all situations, but it does mean formulating an idea of what we want situations to look like and being ready to commit when we see an opening.
America as a global by standard is our historically normal position, and I think it is the view of many of our founding fathers. Granted at the time America was not one of the leading powers. Today we are. Does that necessitate being a leader? No, but it does give us the ability to be one.
Okay, let us digest the Russian perspective. What is it that Putin and his Russians think that happened in Ukraine? They believe or at least assert to their followers that the Pro-Russian Ukrainian government was toppled by protesters set into motion by US and European agents. They further assert that both the US and Europeans are or were fomenting similar such protesters in Russia to over throw them. At no point does Putin or his ilk acknowledge that the Ukrainians might have rebelled against the pro-Russian regime because it was so nakedly pro Russian that it passed up on opening up further economic relations with Europe. That this regime was unfathomably corrupt, and domestically incompetent.
Putin and his oligarchs view Russian greatness and interest as being served by their own interests. Anything that threatens their criminal hold on power in Russia is couched as a threat to Russia itself. When in fact it is simply a challenge to their monopoly on power. Ultimately this is what they could not stand about Ukraine and its revolt. That Ukrainians rose up to over through the oligarchs, means it can happen to anyone even them.
Now the question is why should we view these views as legitimate? Why must we extend to Putin and his kleptocrats the same level of sympathy and respect that we would to Cameron and the Tories? The nature of the Russian regime is what creates the problems.
I went too far as it is.
Putin is pretty popular though isn’t he with the general public? I know he exploits control of the press there, but Russians’ by and large approve of reestablishing some of their old Cold War mojo.
Brent67,
I am not trying to be kind at all. We need some means of differentiating the wildly crazy&dangerous players from just the normally western resentful semi-autocratic states. We have used the word terrorist as our differentiator but it doesn’t do the job. Iran is not just a State sponsor of terror. It is a Jihadist State. It was a Jihadist State from the regime’s inception and it is until this day.
DAY AGAINST ‘GLOBAL ARROGANCE’: IRAN CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN HOSTAGE CRISIS
Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to Saudi Arabia,…etc. The list will go on and on. These aren’t hardliners these are religious ideologues that will follow their Jihadist madness through.
We’re not going to be able to sort out good guys and bad guys. First we sort out the hopelessly religiously psychotic from those who can and do act rationally.
Regards,
Jim
Is Afghanistan the correct precedent though? How about the US experience in Iraq? It took us how many men and dollars to gain ‘control’, only to lose in a couple of years. And ISIS then rose from the ashes. And “it will kill ISIS to the last man” without committing massive Russian military ground forces? I don’t know about that. Remember it took a Sunni awakening for the US to even ‘win’ in Iraq. Well the Sunnis may ‘awaken’ and fight ISIS, or they may not. And if they do, they may harbor hatred for Assad and the Russians that lasts a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time.
ISIS isn’t Afghanistan, but Russia is the leftover USSR. A non-dynamic, resource driven, command economy too fragile for expeditionary wars in general, let alone against an ameba-like non-state terrorist organization.
Putin’s primary, arguably only, interest in Syria is warm water ports and pride. Pride is an expensive pursuit against a global Islamic threat.
Additionally, the allies Russia has formed are exploiting Russia and will turn against Putin the second they no longer need him.
Whether state (Afghanistan) or non-state (ISIS) Russia will weaken herself measurably in this pursuit.
Very fine analysis and still more generous than our enemy deserves.
Could have more on their mind, like draining their own internal swamp of jihadists.
My understanding is that both Assad and ISIS have been mostly avoiding fighting each other. Instead they’re squeezing out the Nusra front, salafist army and remnants of the FSA. Is this incorrect?
I don’t think Russia even has to commit too heavily since it has the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and Hizbollah military units on the ground already.
Not sure how we game this. The FSA is unlikely to win unless US really comes in full-bore, now that Russia is on Assad’s side. But now the US is much more unlikely to exert itself because of that alliance. So what is US game plan then? This should be something we are briefed on pretty soon, wouldn’t you expect? What is the US plan vis-a-vis the FSA and such under these conditions? Do we have a new plan?
Last I heard the US is ending it’s moderate rebel training program and as its last hurrah dropped 50 tons of munitions into Syria. Except by all accounts, and denied by the administration, it was dropped in Kurdish held territory with no explicit agreement demanded from the recipients not to “share” it with the Kurds.
Things are much clearer for Russia since they’re allied with Iran and Syria. The US has no trustworthy allies even in the FSA. Maybe just pivot to the Kurds? They’re ambivalent towards Israel, they’ve sheltered Iraqi christians and yazidi, they would cleave apart Syria and there are Kurdish communities in Iran. The downsides is that they’re some sort of socialist and it would anger the Turks. Not that the Turks have been great friends of late.