{"id":7414,"date":"2015-08-17T14:30:09","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T19:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=7414"},"modified":"2015-08-17T14:30:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T19:30:09","slug":"why-the-new-syrian-army-failed-washington-and-unconventional-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/17\/why-the-new-syrian-army-failed-washington-and-unconventional-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"WHY THE NEW SYRIAN ARMY FAILED: WASHINGTON AND UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/08\/syrian-rebels.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-7415\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/08\/syrian-rebels.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"syrian rebels\" width=\"620\" height=\"387\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><em>By David Maxwell<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><em><strong>The Obama administration did not allow the U.S. military to conduct a proper unconventional warfare campaign, making the failure of Washington&#8217;s favored Syrian rebels inevitable.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>All public signs point to failure in a key U.S. effort to turn the tide of the brutal Syrian civil war \u2014\u00a0the training and fielding of a vetted and politically palatable Syrian force to fight the Islamic State. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2015\/08\/11\/u-s-shelves-its-500m-syrian-rebel-army.html\">Nancy Youssef reveals in <em>The Daily Beast<\/em><\/a>, exasperated U.S. officials are trying to adapt in the wake of disastrous setbacks for the Syrian forces back by the United States, including the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/pentagon-captured-syrian-rebels-not-us-trained-1.360787\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> New Syrian Army and Division 30<\/a>.\u00a0 An initial contingent was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/01\/world\/middleeast\/nusra-front-attacks-us-backed-syrian-rebel-group.html?_r=0\">beaten up badly by rival groups<\/a>, including al Qaeda\u2019s affiliate in Syria, not long after it was introduced back into the wild. Washington\u2019s favored Syrians are now in disarray and in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2015\/08\/trained-syrian-fighters-refusing-fight-150807114420346.html\">public spat with the Pentagon<\/a> over its mission.<\/p>\n<p>This should lead us to ask, why can\u2019t the United States conduct effective unconventional warfare any longer?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dtic.mil\/doctrine\/new_pubs\/jp1_02.pdf\">What is unconventional warfare<\/a>? The Department of Defense defines it as \u201cactivities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Recent examples of successful UW campaigns and supporting operations include Afghanistan in 2001 and Northern Iraq in 2003, in which the 5<sup>th<\/sup> and 10<sup>th<\/sup> Special Forces Groups conducted operations built on a foundation of long established relationships either through the intelligence community (Afghanistan) or directly between Special Forces and indigenous Kurdish elements (in Iraq dating back to 1991 and Operation Provide Comfort).<\/p>\n<p>Read the Remainder at<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/08\/why-the-new-syrian-army-failed-washington-and-unconventional-warfare\/?utm_source=WOTR+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=8baa7a4255-WOTR_Newsletter_8_17_158_15_2015&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_8375be81e9-8baa7a4255-82918357\">War on the Rocks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David Maxwell The Obama administration did not allow the U.S. military to conduct a proper unconventional warfare campaign, making the failure of Washington&#8217;s favored Syrian rebels inevitable. All public signs point to failure in a key U.S. effort to turn the tide of the brutal Syrian civil war \u2014\u00a0the training and fielding of a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1704,74],"tags":[1058,259,1083,1922,1923],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}