{"id":48502,"date":"2015-10-07T19:07:53","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T01:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48502"},"modified":"2015-10-07T11:57:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T18:57:18","slug":"elbowing-a-superpower-russian-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/10\/07\/elbowing-a-superpower-russian-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Elbowing a Superpower &#8211; Russian Style"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field-type-text field-field-writer\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<h2 class=\"field-item odd\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Hemantha Abeywardena writes from London\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0&#8211; Asian Tribune &#8211;<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The fact that a 3-star Russian general gave his US counterparts in Syria just an hour\u2019s notice to move American aircrafts out so that Russia can launch air strikes, undoubtedly, is the most significant watershed moment in the post-Soviet, geo-political landscape.<span class=\"image-caption-container image-caption-container-right\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"id2905519518535584\" class=\"caption\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.asiantribune.com\/sites\/asiantribune.com\/files\/images\/2012\/su-34.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" align=\"\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In fact, the alarming development was a bolt from the blue as far as the Western alliances, both at political and military level, are concerned. At stake, among many things, is the invincibility of the alliances that often went unchallenged, following the Second World War.<\/p>\n<p>Having been caught off-guard, the West can only breathe a sigh of relief from a certain sections of the media, the usual suspects, which started highlighting the civilian casualties, dropping bombs at wrong targets and of course, consequences of the war \u2013 both for Russia and the wider world.<\/p>\n<p>The West has been pushed against the wall by Russia by stubbornly refusing to make a distinction between the Islamic State \u2013 Isis \u2013 and other militants. To make matters worse, Russian\u2019s targets on the very first day were the hideouts of the latter, indeed. The aerial attacks, however, were conducted across most parts of Syria since then, fairly reflecting Russia\u2019s military objective.<\/p>\n<p>Judging by the number of multiple explosions and the extent of the spread of debris in the aerial footages published by the Russian defence ministry, most attacks, if not all, seem to be accurate. No aerial campaign, however, has ever been carried out without inflicting collateral damage and the Russian won\u2019t be able to break that trend despite the extensive use of SUKOI SU-34, the state-of-the-art aircraft, which can attack under both favourable and adverse conditions, both naval and ground targets.<\/p>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/noVfhQePXz8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The West made a disastrous mistake with the notion that it could win a well-funded, intensely-determined guerrilla organisation like Isis that thrives on religious ideology, by a campaign of air attacks, coupled with occasional lucky hits with drones, while ruling out the involvement of ground troops \u2013 for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n<p>When the politicians, with the aid of certain media organizations, overplayed this strategy, most of the general public in the West saw through the futility of these missions. As a consequence, they didn\u2019t buy the arguments that they heard for waging these wars, even if the culprits in question were ruthless despots. In the wake of recent migrant crises, the public wanted someone who really could deal with the issues \u2013 and at the source.<\/p>\n<p>In this context, it is understandable why Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, enjoy a significant support among the general public in the West, as someone who is prepared to take the bull by the horns. The admiration of Mr Putin, both by Donald Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK, meanwhile, has already become a catalyst for pro-Putin sentiments in the West.<\/p>\n<p>Although, the right-wing media keeps attacking Russia against its Syrian campaign, the columnists find it increasingly difficult to find loyal supporters among their respective audiences, according to the responses that they get in the form of comments; a strong pro-Russian trend could be seen among comments, perhaps, much to the annoyance of the media organizations in question.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the rise of Isis, the Western public saw a power vacuum in the Middle East and the involvement of Russia at the eleventh hour, has become the only glimmer of hope in a region, distinctly polarized along the Sunni-Shiat\u2019e fault line.<\/p>\n<p>Since the Sunni camp, led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Turkey are already up in arms against the Russian attacks there is a possibility of military objectives being eclipsed by geo-political sandstorms.<\/p>\n<p>Since Mr Putin is not known for finishing a job halfway through, especially after his Chechnya campaign against a formidable uprising, which almost brought the Russian Federation to its knees during Yeltsin era, there is a potential danger of getting the Syrian conflict out of hand.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, if Iran and Hezbollah got involved in the conflict by assisting President Assad in ground warfare, it would leave Israel rattled to its core with the anxieties over inevitable consequences. President Putin allayed the fears of Benjamin Netanyahu before Russia\u2019s offensive by saying that Syrian state was not in a position to open a second front.<\/p>\n<p>With Shia dominated countries in the Middle East firmly behind Russia in the latest military campaign, political observers are watching the evolving loyalty of Iraq, which is currently at the mercy of Isis.<br \/>\nIf Russia managed to deal with the militants against President Assad in Syria, it would certainly transform the nation to a force to reckon with. So, Iraqi government may be tempted to ask the Russians to extend the campaign over its air space too \u2013 as a last resort to eliminate Isis.<\/p>\n<p>If it happens, the political landscape will be transformed overnight beyond recognition with the epicentre of Sunni Muslims, Saudi Arabia, bearing the brunt of dreadful consequences. With rapidly falling oil revenue and a range of potential problems on economic front, such a scenario cannot come about at a worse time as far as the custodian of the two holiest mosques is concerned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Asian Tribune &#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hemantha Abeywardena writes from London\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0&#8211; Asian Tribune &#8211; The fact that a 3-star Russian general gave his US counterparts in Syria just an hour\u2019s notice to move American aircrafts out so that Russia can launch air strikes, undoubtedly, is the most significant watershed moment in the post-Soviet, geo-political landscape. In fact, the alarming development was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}