Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Finally, Someone With Guts to Stand Up to Russian Aggression: While the Loss of Life is Regrettable, the Russians Have Been Inflicting Casualties on People Fighting ISIS

Turkey shot down a Russian Air Force aircraft, and put Russia on notice that it won’t tolerate Russia’s blatant disregard for the airspace of other nations.

While I doubt that Russia will attack Turkey militarily, I can see diplomatic and economic reprisals in the near future. 

The last thing that Russia needs is a shooting war with NATO.

Thursday, November 05, 2015

With Possible ISIS Bomb Bringing Down Russian Airliner Over Sinai Peninsula, Perhaps Russians Will Get With the Program and Start Focusing on ISIS Exclusively Instead of Assad’s U.S.-Backed Enemies

One of the features of Russia’s air campaign in Syria has been that Russian jets have been rarely hitting ISIS targets , while focusing most of their targeting on President Assad’s U.S.-backed opposition.   Note the map below:

russian air strikes

Even though this map has not been updated since October 5th, the Russian targeting hasn’t changed a whole lot.  Reports of Russian air strikes on rebel controlled territory have been coming in daily.

But with a possible bomb onboard a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, and with ISIS claiming credit for taking down the flight with over two hundred Russian citizens on board, perhaps the Russians will go after ISIS more, which is what they should have been doing from the very beginning. 

Assad’s fate can be decided later. 

ISIS is the bigger threat; that’s the narrative that the American and Russian governments need to agree on.