Shammu
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« on: March 19, 2007, 06:30:57 PM » |
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This is a detailed scenerio, that tells how Syria thinks it can win a war with Israel.
War Clouds Gather Over the Golan
Martin Van Creveld | Fri. Mar 09, 2007
While the world’s attention is riveted on the conflict in Iraq and a possible American attack on Iran, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad may be quietly preparing for a war against Israel.
From the mid-1950s until the end of the Cold War, what made Syria’s aggression against Israel possible was the fact that Damascus got its military hardware almost for free from the Soviet Union. With the collapse of communism, this arrangement came to an end, leaving late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad with a debt of well over $10 billion. Since he did not have the money to pay, most procurement was brought to a halt.
Equipped only with the weapons they had been provided in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Syrian armed forces were allowed to decay until much of their equipment was fit only for the junkyards. Now, however, the balance seems again to be tilting toward Damascus.
The first step was taken in January 2005. In an apparent effort to reassert Moscow’s power in the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin forgave Damascus three quarters of its debt; the rest, it seems, has now been paid by Iran. This agreement enabled the Syrians to start rebuilding their armed forces.
Damascus began by completing the large array of surface-to-surface Scud missiles that, with North Korean help, they had been building throughout the 1990s. As a result, they now have several hundred such missiles. Some are armed with chemical warheads, and some are capable of reaching just about any target inside Israel.
Of late, the Syrians have gone on a real shopping spree. They have bought Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles and anti-ship missiles capable of being launched either by sea or by land. The equipment in question is modern and extremely sophisticated. Some of it has yet to even enter service in Russia itself — and much of it is as good as, if not better than, anything found in the West.
Meanwhile, the Syrian High Command has also been studying the lessons of the recent war in Lebanon. From the little that has leaked out, it is possible to put together the following picture: Seen from Damascus, Israel’s strategic deterrent has proved irrelevant, and it can, provided some limits are observed, be safely ignored. During this past summer’s hostilities with Hezbollah, the only part of the Israeli military that performed credibly was the air force.
To be sure, excellent intelligence and superb command and control enabled the air force to knock out every single Hezbollah-owned surface-to-surface missile launcher either before it could come into action or immediately after it had done so. The Israelis, however, had an easy task, since their fighter-bombers were facing practically no opposition; even so, fearing casualties, they hardly dared use their helicopters. Moreover, the air force failed to stop the short-range rockets raining down on northern Israel.
The Israeli air force could wreak much destruction, but it could not force a decision.
At sea and on land, Israel did much worse. Following a successful Hezbollah missile strike that hit, but did not sink, one of Israel’s ships, the navy was forced to stay well away from the Lebanese shore. It blockaded Lebanon’s ports but was unable to do much to influence the battle.
The ground forces, both conscripts and reservists, proved heavy handed, hesitant, slow, ill trained and ill motivated. In part, they were also badly commanded; too many senior officers, instead of leading their men as they used to do, stayed behind their computers well in the rear. Overall there was precious little to show that these were the same forces that as recently as 1982 had taken just one week to reach Beirut.
Considering these demonstrated shortcomings on the Israeli side, the outline of a possible Syrian plan of attack is not hard to guess. In contrast to Syria’s launching of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, there will be no large-scale offensive action either in the air — expect, perhaps, by commando forces — or on the ground.
Instead, some incident will be generated and used as an excuse for opening rocket fire on the Golan Heights and the Galilee. Once that happens, Hezbollah will most likely be induced to join in. The United Nations forces in Lebanon will, as usual, prove to be a broken reed.
Should the Israelis respond by sending in their heavy armor, the Syrians will stay on the defensive, relying on their newly acquired anti-tank missiles to break the assault. Should the Israelis send in their air force, the Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries will be waiting for them.
To deter the Israelis from escalating the struggle and smashing Syria’s infrastructure, as they did in Lebanon, the Syrians will rely on their missiles. The overall goal will be to draw out the conflict and inflict casualties, civilian as well as military, until Jerusalem finally throws in the towel.
cont'd next post
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