On Strategy: More Than Just a Bridge

this is exactly what happens when there is no strategy whatsoever outside of disinformation to cover the fact there is no strategy……

Now we are seeing the extent of the failure of the Obama Syrian FP……actually there was never one to begin with…was simply all media focused comments and no actions…..AND we see now the effects of the Iran Deal hard at work…WHEN Obama placed his entire legacy in the hands of Iranian “moderates”…..

Iranian General close to Khameini calls for annexation of #Bahrain … again –
http://beyondthelevant.com/2016/03/2…bahrain-again/ …

One has to seriously wonder just why Obama and Kerry have bought into Putin’s non linear war directed against the US…meaning doing everything in their power to actually support it……WHEN Obama publicly stated in 2014….”we will judge Putin on his actions not his words”…THEN Putin throws both a little “action” and the US caves……

After Putin’s fake withdrawal from Syria, two days later, he’s threatening to bomb Syrian cease-fire violators
http://wapo.st/1ZlsnpN?tid=ss_tw …

WHICH BTW includes, Iran, Hezbollah and the Assad regime forces……..

ALL thw while we have a serious ongoing slow stepped Russian ground offensive in full gear against UAF frontline positions….AND not a single public Obama nor Kerry comment on the attacks by the Russians.

ALSO notice that while the US DoS supposedly has this high tech 1-800 call center for Syrians to call in the variously CoH violations which in itself is a farce WE have never heard from DoS just who is violating the CoH.

JUST as in the Ukraine…with all of the billions spent on the ISR capabilities of the US intel community….Obama and Kerry have never called out Russia for it’s constant flow of weapons and troops into Ukraine…I take that back…only once did they do it in 2014 After social media open source analysts had already released their data on the Russian military shelling’s from Russia and their actual invasion of eastern Ukraine….

Here is an article that talks about strategy…sadly not the US strategy….

NOTICE when it was written and the US still has no strategy for anything…..

http://www.politico.eu/article/the-dangerous-link-between-syria-and-ukraine/

[B]The dangerous link between Syria and Ukraine
Vladimir Putin has used the fighting in both countries to trap the U.S[/B].

By Eerik-Niiles Kross and Molly K. McKew
9/25/15, 11:35 AM CET

Despite what Vladimir Putin is saying, the United States still staunchly refuses to believe Russia is engaged in a new Cold War — and that the U.S. is losing. But Russia aggressively pushes its own narrative where U.S. leadership is absent. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems to be everywhere in recent weeks, speaking several times with his US counterpart and others in the region, selling Russia as a partner for peace and stability when the West is faced with crisis.

Experts from the left and right alike warn that cooperation with Russia on Syria can have potentially disastrous consequences for the U.S., but too many Americans still don’t understand how closely linked these two headline conflicts are, and American policy has yet to confront the reality that Syria and Ukraine are part of the same mission for Russia — the destruction of the post-WWII architecture of the West. To achieve this goal, Russia has pursued a clear policy of disruption, chaos and destabilization — in Ukraine and in the Middle East — in order to force the West to have to partner with Russia to “resolve” the crises it has created.

Now, poised to launch a direct military campaign in Syria, Russia wants the U.S. to join a Russian-led coalition against the Islamic State and complete the rehabilitation of Bashar al Assad, or else end up in direct conflict with Russia in the Middle East. Indeed, many of the anti-aircraft and other Russian weapons systems being moved to Syria are more suited to shooting at American drones and assets than anything the Islamic State has access to.

This suggested coalition is little more than a well-constructed trap for the White House and for Europe. Russia created the conflict in Ukraine. Their military support for Assad fuels a bloody civil war and a refugee crisis from Syria. Russian efforts have also materially aided in the creation of the Islamic State — the wealthiest, best-armed terrorist network in history.

Understanding how Russia has engineered the false choice between accepting Russia as a dominant force in its “sphere of influence” or the proliferation of conflict is essential to accepting that neither choice is the answer.

* * *

Too often policy analysts debate whether the Kremlin is strategic or merely tactical in its approach to foreign policy. But the answer doesn’t matter. They don’t need a master plan when one clear strategic objective drives decision-making: make the U.S. the enemy — and make them look weak. The Kremlin has been opportunistic and decisive in grabbing a position of strength — in the Middle East and in Europe — while U.S. attention has waned and retracted.

When the civil uprising against Assad first began in Syria, the rebellion’s leaders hoped for western support. Support for the rebels was slow to materialize, despite early calls for Assad to leave power, but Russia — eager to protect its military foothold on the Mediterranean and on the southern flank of NATO — was quick to line up against U.S. policy and supply Assad with arms, military advisers, intelligence and political support. After Syria deployed chemical weapons against rebels and civilians in August 2013, Russia brokered a deal with the U.S. to save Assad from outside military intervention.

Russian support for Assad has allowed the civil war to continue for years at such an intense level of bloodshed and destruction. But shipments of armaments were not their only tool for saving their primary regional ally. They are also involved in building an engine of terrorism to open a second front in the Syrian war.

By the time the chemical weapons deal was signed, the nature of the war in Syria had changed. Before the 2014 Sochi Olympics — as Russia issued warnings about potential attacks by North Caucasus extremists and moved military assets into the region for the seizure of Crimea—there were rumors, now confirmed by Russian investigative journalists, that Russia was actively exporting fighters from the North Caucasus to Syria. Elena Milashina, writing in Novaya Gazeta, documented how, beginning in 2011, the FSB established safe routes for militants in the North Caucasus to reach Syria via Turkey. Local FSB officers, sometimes with the help of local intermediaries and community leaders, encouraged and aided jihadis to leave Russia for the fighting in the Middle East, in many cases providing documents that allowed them to travel.

It probably wasn’t a hard sell for the FSB to make to nascent jihadis: Go fight in the desert, for infinite riches and glory, or stay in Russia, where the security services had pretty good cover to kill a lot of them.

A lot of them left. In late 2012, Russian-speaking jihadis began to arrive in Syria. According to regional intelligence sources who have closely tracked their movements and activities, the Russian-speakers negotiated the unification of the Islamic States in Syria and in Iraq, creating the current Islamic State formation.

Suddenly, the war in Syria was “confusing” to American policymakers seeking a way out of the war and an end to Assad’s regime. There were “good rebels” and “bad rebels,” and the U.S. couldn’t decide which side to support. These tactics were similar to the irregular warfare Russia would deploy in Ukraine.

The war at that point also turned away from Assad and Syria, and toward Iraq instead. The western front of ISIL was led by Russian-speakers; the eastern commanders included disenfranchised Soviet/Russian-trained Saddam-era Sunni military officers. From the beginning, their efforts were closely coordinated. There were reports from Kurdish forces of Russian operatives at secret outposts in the desert.

Meanwhile, back in Russia, the jihad in the North Caucasus was steadily depleted. Crimea was seized and annexed in 2014. Russia’s information war portrays Assad as a champion against terrorism, with the help of Russian and Iranian support. This Middle Eastern narrative is a key instrument for distracting attention from the war in Ukraine.

The war in the Donbas has grown quiet, and will likely stay that way until Putin makes his first speech before the UN General Assembly in 10 years on September 28. This is a part of his strategy to strong-arm the Obama White House into supporting Russia’s actions in Syria. Putin will speak about Ukraine and the war on terror — while Russian deployments to Syria escalate, with many of the same shadow special forces units launch from Sevastopol to Damascus. Syrian refugees flood Europe and create political crisis. Many European leaders have stated that Russia must be part of the solution in Syria — despite the chaos it’s purposefully creating in Ukraine.

This is, of course, exactly what Russia wants. A global expansion of the “reset:” partner with Russia to solve the crises it has created while ignoring its bad deeds.

Russia’s strategy has included the empowerment of other bad-news actors. Russia has pushed for the U.S. nuclear deal with Shiite Iran; Russia will also benefit from the deal commercially and financial and in terms of the strengthened positioned for its ally in the region. Russia has simultaneously used the dissatisfaction of regional Sunni powers to cultivate relationships with traditional American allies: increasing economic, nuclear and military cooperation with Egypt; negotiating a nuclear deal with Jordan; coordinating energy policy with the Saudis.

Russia now pushes for an anti-terrorism coalition to complete the rehabilitation of Assad, undermine the U.S. position on Syria, likely force an end to the sanctions imposed because of its actions in Ukraine and position Russia as a regional leader. As a bonus, Vladimir Putin could erase another despised democratic revolt by ending the Syrian people’s desire for freedom. In Moscow’s eyes, this is victory over the U.S.

Both in Ukraine and in Syria, Russia created chaos to become the center of all U.S. policy options in the Middle East and Europe — or so it would have the U.S. believe. Absent real leadership on U.S. foreign policy, the Kremlin has been successful at manipulating what they view as an indecisive and disinterested U.S. president into caving to their demands.

In the Kremlin’s best case scenario, the U.S. and Russia become allies, killing Chechen jihadis and re-entrenching Assad, and they receive new concessions to bolster their efforts to destabilize the government in Kyiv. With their bluster and threats, they encourage the White House to see the alternative as pursuing separate policies over Syria and ISIL and possibly end up in direct conflict — a Vietnam for the post-Cold War era.

It is the outcome Putin has craved since the war in Georgia in 2008 — forcing the U.S. to back down from direct confrontation, empowering the Russian exceptionalist narrative that he so hauntingly outlined when he called for the annexation of Crimea. After slow half-measures in response to two conflicts fueled by Russian money and military support, Putin feels certain that Obama will not risk even a proxy military confrontation with Moscow. And with one year left in the U.S. presidency, he sees now as the time to act.

* * *

Cultivating an engine of terrorism to save Assad and distract from Ukraine is a dangerous game — but Russia’s risk/reward calculus is far different from ours. ISIL may be more volatile than the “green men,” the Russian special forces troops deployed without national flags in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but the potential prize is far greater: Russia doesn’t need to challenge NATO’s Article 5 collective defense principal if it can neutralize the United States. This will impact the outcome in Ukraine and across the frontier of Europe, put frontline nations in the Baltics at further risk and determine the future of NATO.

U.S. policy has failed to develop effective responses to end the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria or slow the expansion of ISIL, and now many nations are at risk. The next U.S. president will likely come to office facing a world in which U.S. interests are challenged and compromised, and in which the architecture of Western security is at risk. Without the alliance structures we have relied on to provide peace and stability since World War II, it will be more costly and dangerous for the United States to defend itself and its interests. But the current U.S. president can still act to ensure the world is not adrift to the manipulations of an alliance of tyrants.

Russia has constructed a dangerous geopolitical trap for U.S. policy. The way out requires the U.S. to develop adequate policy positions and stop equivocating about what Russia is doing in Ukraine and Syria. This policy must also be enforced, instead of revised and retreated from each time Russia manufactures a new opportunity to bully us. Provide Ukraine defensive arms and intelligence support; re-engage the Middle East and stop apologizing for Iraq; and confront Russian actions in the region and beyond. The answer to the crises in Ukraine and Syria, and the refugee crisis and the blossoming threat of ISIL, is in facing the centrality of Russia’s role in these conflicts and taking the lead.

Do not think for a moment Russia does not drive on a strategy…..and because Obama has nothing it is hard to even think about countering the current Russian political warfare fully aimed at the US.

Here is the philosophical justification to use Islam to fight the West by Alexander Dugin.

http://openrevolt.info/2011/11/15/al…ion-and-islam/ …

1. The value of Islam. In today’s world, Islam is the world religion most actively resisting globalism’s force. It makes the Islamic factor extremely important for the front of traditionalism. In this war with Islam the United States and ideologue of the End of history Francis Fukuyama even tried to suggest the term “Islamofascism” to greater discredit the faith. United States as an empire tends to designate Islam the new enemy number one. This is a almost official U.S. position now while with Bush it was merely formal. And therefore Islam should be treated as a priority field of struggle against U.S. imperialism, the modern and post-modern world and globalization. This determines the value and importance of Islam.

2. Islam is diverse. Attitude toward Islam as something unified and coherent, as something homogeneous, is a delusion or an “empty concept”. This concept is found in three cases: in ignorant masses (which are generally always wrong, as the platitude is incompatible with the truth), in propaganda of the world’s centers of power (using it for specific political purposes); from the of mouth so-called theorists of “Pure Islam” (Salafi, Wahhabi, etc.) sometimes called conventional “Islamic fundamentalism”, “integrism.” The first two cases are clear. The third case is a perfected innovation trying to take the place of existing Islam (traditional Islam)as a confession of faith in the guise of a “return to roots.” Something similar is done by the Protestants, proposing to return to the “true”, early Christianity, but creating something entirely new which hardly has any relation to Christianity. “Pure Islam” – is close to that.

3. We must analyze Islam out of the “myths”, as it is, in its diversity. This should highlight the theological, historical, geopolitical, ethnic aspects in each of its schools. This is a gigantic task, without which we can not seriously talk about Islam. The division must go through its main lines: Sunni – Shia.

4. Shiites. It is clear that the Shiite minority is a completely separate issue – metaphysically, and geo-politically and ethnically. In general, Shiites (and any trunk duodenary and heterodox septenary, and especially rare Ishraq and Iranian Sufism) is very similar to traditionalism. It has no universalist dimension and allows for wide differences. Especially important is its messianic (Mahdi) direction, because in this way it is easier to find common ground with the traditionalist understanding of the nature of the modern and postmodern world as the “discovery of the Cosmic Egg” from the bottom and a “great parody.”

5. Sunni: Traditional Islam and Salafism. The Sunni majority to be divided by several factors: allowing Sufism and not allowing Wahhabism (in the style of the Hanbalite and proper Wahhabism).

6. At-tassavuf. Those Sunni schools that are tolerant to esoterism and thus have a dimension in which to build a rapport with the traditionalist approach. The world of sufism itself is very wide. Many Tariqa are feuding with each other. Some are going to end up proselytizing and the New Age. Others are closed and become almost folkloric ethno-sectarian. The most interesting are followers of at-tassavuf, which are rooted in its traditions, orthodox, but have a broad outlook on the reality of the modern world, in its sociological, geopolitical, axiological and economic aspects. These are few, but they are extremely important. The environment of at-tassavufa is great in whole. Obviously needed is a policy text, emphasizing the radical values and the incompatibility of “Tariqa” with modern and post-modernity also describing the general (without detail) behavioral strategy of a Sufi in the “end of the world.” Preconditions for that are numerous. But the summation work or it’s author are absent. But they should come to be.

7. Traditional Islam as a whole. There is no intellectual guide for the “last days” in the context of the usual traditional Islam. This is understandable, since it does not present any conceptual unity. Traditional Islam is present, it represents the vast majority of modern Muslims, but there is no generalizing eschatological guidance for the global ummah. All that’s found after the initial test is a sect or Salafism. This is not surprising: eschatology is concentrated in the sects, and the Salafis, in general, try to be the Ummah. And yet eschatological, anti-globalist, anti-American, anti-modern and anti-postmodern sentiment among Muslims is extremely developed. It would be desirable to have the appearance of a serial publication such as “Traditional Islam” which would serve as a platform to present the positions of particular varieties of Islamic communities.

8. Salafism and the global Salafi project. Salafism, pure Islam are on the front wing of the political struggle in the Muslim sector of the modern world. It is a fact and that can not be denied. It is here that we meet the most clear and simple strategy, global thinking, well-defined goals: the establishment of the global Islamic State, the imposition of Sharia law, the organization of society on Islamic principles on a global scale, the doctrine of the “house of war” (dar al-harb) wherever there is no “house of Islam (” Dar ul-Islam “), etc. Obviously, in this program there is acceptable and unacceptable for parts for Traditionalism. Acceptable is the struggle against the common enemy; unacceptable in regard to the proposed alternative, in fact, this “Islamic Project”, is more accurately called the “Salafi project.” It is important to understand the metaphysics of the “Salafi project.” Their metaphysics are not neutral, they are built on denial of esotericism and traditionalism, which are defined here as “shirk”, a deviation from “pure Islam”. The roots of the dispute go back to the Mu’tazilites and opponents of the philosophers and Sufis. The “Salafi project,” radical anti-shia,anti-sufi, and anti-traditional. And this is not a distinctive feature of individual Salafis, but the obligatory metaphysics of all this movement. This ambiguity is reflected geopolitically in the close relations of Salafism (in particular, bin Laden and Al Qaeda), Brzezinski and the CIA during the Afghan war, that Americans have always Salafis services, giving rise to interfere in the sovereign affairs of those countries which try to resist the United States (Iraq, Libya, Syria, anti-Russian Salafism in the North Caucasus), but on the other hand it’s Salafis we also see active in anti-globalization attacking U.S. forces. This ambiguity should conceptualize time and time again to bring round this dialogue, to explain all sides in the conflict. In the global battle against the Dajjal – the role played by Salafism? We have left this question open.

9. Islam in Russia. Position, role and place of Islam in Russia, we must consider with the eschatological and traditionalist positions. For this we must seriously apply all of the previous theses to the Russian situation. Islam is a part of Russia’s space and it has developed over the centuries. But Russia has not become entrenched in their positions in the West, globalization, the U.S., liberalism, post-modernism. The position of authorities is evasive and can be interpreted in different ways. Forces of “Dajjal” are easy to speculate here. Pointing to the globalist and liberal Russian side they play against the Muslims on it, but at the same time, Russian Muslims – as “migrants”, “immigrants”, etc. This is a strategy to reduce the potential enemy of the West. We must work hard to oppose to it an eschatological alliance of Muslims and Orthodox Christians ( all Russia wide) against the U.S., Western liberalism and modernization. The closest point of contact with a Russian traditional Islam, this is not always fact, but theoretically there is clear direction for this dialogue. In the intellectual sphere, and especially even more in the Neoplatonic similarities. And at the outer level brings us together opposition to the West, liberalism and post-modernity. But here traditional Islam is often passive and limited with diplomatic formulas, rather than proposing a common strategy. The liberal pro-Western “modernization” aspects of Russian power, corruption and decay of society, traditions, manners are abhorrent to us and Muslims, we must fight it with them, fight together and not against each other. The main problems arise with Salafism. It plays the role of “scarecrow” to discredit the whole of Islam and its radical projects exacerbate the conflict between Muslims and oriented eschatology and similar orientated forces of other faiths, or merely instinctive opponents of globalization. Here, room for significant and challenging dialogue.

10. Summary: Islam and tradition. Islam is directly related to the Tradition. It is an indisputable fact. And as such it should be recognized by traditionalists. Islam is active and in favor of a traditional society. This should be supported. But Islam is not identical with the Tradition. Tradition can be un-Islamic. If Muslims accept it, agree to the terms of multipolarity, an active dialogue and close cooperation, including military, against post-modern world and the Antichrist / Dajall, should be encouraged.

Continued…….

It is really important to understand what this Russian right wing ideologue says and writes….while many in the West believe he is a tad crazy..he carries a lot of weight inside the Putin inner circle with his thinking.

But in certain phases of Putin’s foreign policy he comes out of his shell makes key statements or comments that need to be understood as it points to the thinking around Putin…Putin has been quoted as placing a lot of value in Dugin’s writings…

The last sentence of the point one sums up the entire article……and it is the cornerstone to the Russian political warfare fully directed at the US right now by Putin…..

QUOTE:
And therefore Islam should be treated as a priority field of struggle against U.S. imperialism, the modern and post-modern world and globalization. This determines the value and importance of Islam.
UNQUOTE: