Thomas Wictor

US troops in the Middle East are part of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve. Their purpose is to defeat the Islamic State. Nothing else. The reason I’m saying this is because of a tweet I saw.

Azaz is where Syrian Kurds, Islamist rebels, the Islamic State, and Bashar al-Assad’s allies are all fighting it out.

You should get in the habit of reading US Department of Defense transcripts. American troops in Syria are there to engage only the Islamic State. We’re not going to get enmeshed in any other disputes on any side.

Also, American special-operations forces (SOF) are involved in advise and assist missions, as well as occasionally killing or capturing top Islamic State commanders. But that’s it. American SOF are kept far from the front lines.

Purpose of other SOF

The people doing the heaviest fighting in Syria are the Arab League and its allies. We know that the following nations have sent SOF.

Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Bahrain
Qatar
Egypt
Sudan
Pakistan
Senegal
Eritrea
Mauritania
Malaysia
Indonesia
Brunei

Morocco, Algeria, and Jordan have almost certainly provided SOF as well.

American and other western SOF are limited by indestructible rivalries between the branches of service. The US Air Force hates doing close air support (CAS) for SOF, but both Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the Air Force don’t want SOF to have their own ground-attack aircraft. It’s crazy.

The Arab League and its allies have done away with internecine rivalries by creating strategic SOF that have weapons from all branches of the service. The Egyptian Rapid Deployment Forces, for example.

They have main battle tanks, light armored vehicles, artillery, naval capabilities, helicopter gunships, and attack aircraft.

The United Arab Emirates Presidential Guard is the same.

Exercise Northern Thunder indicates that the Saudi Special Forces have their own armor, artillery, naval capabilities, and air power. The purpose of the Arab League and allied strategic SOF is to win, not garner accolades for a particular branch of service.

Because of hidebound traditions, it’s not likely that the west will ever create strategic special forces on a par with those of the Arab League and its allies.

Purpose of a new approach

I’m positive that Israel and Arab nations jointly developed the new weapons used in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Personally, I used to agree with the following sentiment.

The problem is that by being cruel, you engender a desire for revenge. This is especially true in the Middle East. Defeating an enemy guarantees a future war.

I also used to agree with the master of war, Sun Tzu.

2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

Well, the Arab League has created its own rules for warfare.

Purpose of long wars

Which do you think is better, a thousand soldiers with the firepower of a thousand, or 100 men with the firepower of ten thousand? Those hundred men are not expensive to keep in the field, and—most importantly—they won’t lay waste to an entire nation. The new Arab and allied strategic SOF are fighting in near-total secrecy. They don’t wave flags or give interviews. Unmarked aircraft resupply them.

Which do you think is better, a short, expensive war that kills a huge number of people; or a long, low-intensity, affordable conflict that spares the lives of civilians and combatants alike?

A long war is sustainable if few lives are sacrificed, if the purpose of the conflict is explained in detail, and if the press and NGOs aren’t successful at painting it as a failure. The Saudis completely ignored accusations of war crimes, quagmire, and incompetence in Yemen, and eventually journalists and “human rights” groups gave up their pathetic lying.

The west may lack the fortitude to fight by the new Arab rules.

Purpose of new weapons

Although the new Israeli-Arab weapons are the most destructive ever created, they can also be modulated. An American aircraft did not deliver this munition.

Here’s the weapon.

When it struck the VBIED, a cloud of explosive vapor was ejected upward.

The vapor exploded.

However, the vehicle was completely intact after the explosion.

As the burning vehicle rolls forward, you can see that the munition passed completely through it and went into the ground.

These new weapons work in two ways: 1) They use the force of exploding vapor to contain the shock wave and wreckage of the VBIED; and 2) they incinerate much of the VBIED’s explosives, preventing them from detonating.

Before the war in Syria, the remnants of VBIEDs always looked like this.

The new weapons will make car bombs obsolete.

Purpose of the new war-fighting

My guess is that Arab League and allied strategic SOF will suffer the least amount of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of any soldiers in history. Their goal is to end wars in the Middle East. It’s clear that killing the enemy isn’t the mission; Arab League and allied SOF are stopping the enemy.

A relatively small number of very bad men will die, and a lot of military equipment will be destroyed. But that’s pretty much it.

In five years, we won’t recognize the Middle East.