The Syrian War
This is a thread that will take over the thread titled "Are the West turning Syria into Afghanistan 2.0?"
The Syrian war is an ongoing war since Protected content . It is no longer appropriate to call this war as the Syrian civil war because there are a growing number of foreign countries directly involved in this war, and the number of countries that get involved in this war is growing as more European countries that are NATO members will send troops to Syria. Current foreign participants with military presence in Syria are the U.S., U.K., France, Israel (direct incursions into Syria and direct attacks on the Syrian Arab Army and its allies), Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. Other countries have direct political and financial roles in this war, and examples of these countries are Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., and Jordan.
This war is expected to have no end in horizon. There is no foreign country that is waging a full-scale war in Syria, but all are involved in ongoing and frequent military operations that are restricted in size. The Syrian Arab Army has concurrent small-scale military operations, backed by the Russian air power, Iranian special forces, Iran-backed militias, and Hezbollah, in various parts of the country and aimed to retake control of the country at piecemeal pace. Thus, the Syrian warfare is suitable for testing new weaponry, including missiles and fighter aircraft, and defense systems. This is a war theater that will sustain the industrial military complexes profitable for a long time.
As a result, Syria now looks like Myanmar, Sudan, and South Sudan. These countries are divided into government-controlled areas and areas controlled by various rebel factions. There is high likelihood that Syria as it was known before Protected content no longer in existence.
In terms of population size (manpower), technological knowhow, wealth, and other factors for winning wars, Iran cannot match the combination of NATO countries, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Thus, it has to leverage the whole Shiite communities in the world. The solidarity of Shiites across the globe has resulted in Shiite militias from Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan (including Oriental-looking Hazaras), and Pakistan being present in Syria, fighting for the Syrian government.
Recently, a retired Chinese general said that he should have gone to wars. Words are easily uttered but are extremely difficult to put into actions. During the Korean War, Chinese troops were slaughtered from the air by U.S. warplanes that dropped bombs and napalm right on Chinese troops. During the invasion of northern Vietnam right after the Vietnam War was over, Chinese troops were lured into empty villages and towns and then were ambushed by Vietnamese troops from surrounding forests and hills. In both of these wars, China lost a huge number of troops. There were also short borders wars between China and U.S.S.R. and between China and India during the Cold War. This Syrian war is an opportunity for the Chinese military to gain combat experience, but China's economic interests seem to take precedence over its military.
