choke points

Another crisp report on the current state of the Syrian civil war from Small Wars Journal: 

In the last few weeks, the center of gravity of the ongoing struggle for control of northern Syria has become apparent. The war in Syria is entering a critical new phase. In Idlib and Raqqa provinces, the regime’s lines of communication and supply between its stronghold cities are being seriously threatened. At several points on the map, rebel forces have seized chokeholds on the routes that link the strongholds of the regime to the active battlefields of northern and eastern Syria. These chokepoints are the fulcrum upon which the fortunes of Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa and Dayr-az-Zoir Provinces will be decided.

This is by the same guy who wrote that piece on the Syrian uprising considered as Maoist people's war the other week. Applying that analogy to the current state of play, this is strongly reminiscent of the Liaoshen campaign of 1948, which I guess puts Damascus on course to fall sometime next spring.

Comments

[shah8]

I do not think this maoist warfare narrative works.

The first and primary difference from a maoist insurgency is that the rebellion is part of a proxy war.

As a proxy war (where two hegemonies compete inside an independent third country), rather than a rebellion in any true sense--it is best to compare the history and tactics against something like the Angolan Civil War, where the foreign supported rural war party is used to keep a nation weak rather than win anything in particular. I think it is best to analogize the FSA as the UNITA here. The Kurds as the FNLC intent on new Shaba invasions against Turkey. The Regime as MPLA.

My estimate is that the FSA will eventually lose. Syria is too close to places that matter, and is rather well armed, relatively speaking for such proxy wars. I also think that fundamentally, there are no diamond trades (such what supported rebels in Angola or Sierra Leone), and not much oil at stake or could be sold for weapons. There is nothing to be got, really, in Syria, except for a weak state, and I think that weak states will ultimately not be tolerated, like the late Ottoman period, because, again, Syria borders places that matter, and providing a rear to unsavory organs to all of its neighbors will prove intolerable to them. Speaking of what can be got, what do you think is the economy in much of the conflict zones is like? How well do you think people are eating or farming? I expect famine of some sort to cut what public support there is for rebellion at the knees in the near future. Lastly, I think that the world is undergoing a series of troubles. I think the fun and games Syria provides GCC and US conservatives will be outweighed by attention demands to a more pertinent crisis, like the dissolving EU. Don't think it will be dissovled? Do you see any sort of jubilee? No? Until then, one should presume some sort of inevitable disorderly default will eat up attention. Then there is Pakistan... etc, etc. Lots of bad thing fermenting out there, unlike the Cold War.