Daily Alert Archives

Syrian Stalemate

(Foreign Policy) John Arquilla - The Syrian Army, most of whose striking power is concentrated in eight tank divisions, has a terrible time trying to deal with "pop up" attacks by small rebel fire teams. The rebels' real advantage lies in being able to launch offensives simultaneously in half a dozen Syrian cities. The regime hasn't yet figured out how to scale down its forces into smaller units and deploy them widely enough to tamp down these hotspots. The simple math of the Syrian civil war is that the rebels attack many points at the same time, while the Syrian military is only able to focus its counterattacks on a few points at any given moment. Unless Assad can create a counter-swarm of his own, his days are numbered. The author teaches at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
2012-10-16 00:00:00
Full Article