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Comment by dillondoyle | Hacker News Reader

Yeah Syria is interesting

The problem with all these conflicts is winning is so poorly defined or multi-goal.

What's winning in Syria? Getting rid of assad and then leaving? We could probably do that in a week or less and utterly demolish the country if we wanted. The consequences of 'winning' that war under that definition would probably be pretty horrible.

But that doesn't seem to be the goal right now?

There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..).

Though Afghanistan is pretty simple imho. there aren't nearly as many global power stakes... The taliban explicitly does not want Democracy so if that is 'winning' it's doomed to a loss by default.

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> We could probably do that in a week or less

Eh - I'm not sure. Getting aircraft overhead would be difficult east of the euphrates when they have lots of anti-aircraft guns and they are also supported heavily by Russia.

The only Western power currently conducting airstrikes east of the euphrates is Israel and they have had planes shot down by Syria & Russia.

The US has a preponderance of military power, but I do think people are quick to assume that this means the US could easily topple lots of foreign nations. For some, that is definitely true, for others, like Iran, I think that is a misplaced confidence.

If the goal is total to level the country to the ground, we've had that capability for decades now: supersonic and stealth bombers, as well as SLBMs, SLCMs, and ICBMs. And there's always nukes of course.

The whole collateral damage aspect is pretty high. But if we were willing to deal with the humanitarian and diplomatic fallout, we could do it pretty easily.

Fair enough - we can get a lot done with cruise missiles, but as you said, it would be challenging to do without significant civilian casualties.

The anti-aircraft guns obstacle is, as you've said, more than surmountable. The likelihood of Russian reprisal, imo, is not.

Winning in Syria was helping Qatar build their Qatar gas pipeline to Europe, but Russia stepped in and didn't let that happen. It was too big of a threat to Russia's most crucial export monopoly: energy to Europe.

> There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..).

Excuse me, but the goal should be that exactly. Not leaving an inch of flesh of the bear unpoked.

If you resign your emotions, and try to think about it seriously, it makes a lot of sense strategically to conduct a massive provocation.

Right now, it's completely the other way around: Putin delivers one grievous provocation after another to NATO. NATO grovels, shivers, but does nothing, for the whole world to laugh on.

It earns him client states, and satellites. You absolutely don't want your enemies flocking together.

If you turn that around, the world, and his wannabe clients that it's him now who can't do anything, but throw adorable tantrums, his construct will melt away withing years.

2 birds 1 stone.

It's also the types like Orbans, Sisis, and Assads who are only showing the voice now, because they can afford to look brave when the West is intimidated. That will pull the carpet from under them too.

Nonsense, NATO is literally surrounding its so-called 'enemies' with endless streams of base-building. NATO is not groveling or shivering - it is slowly invading proxy countries and extending the US empire, creep creep ..

* I agree. But also parent has a point, Crimea, election hacking, extrajudicial poisoning on British etc soil didn't have a robust response - that we know of at least.

I do think Trump was very dangerous and damaging in regards to NATO and pushing our allies away. By not understanding that 'america first' means so much more than simply scraping a few billion more from allies. That's playing checkers in terms of only being able to think in slogan-first 1st order logic. 2nd order or more is understanding why NATO was formed in the first place and the current role it has advancing our interests.

And I think it's critical to actively work against movements of authoritarian nationalism and hold Europe and our allies together.

I'm glad and think Biden is doing a better job in the Pacific in that regard.

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