Syria War Map: First Gains of YPG-led Advance on ISIS-controlled City of Raqqa

What does Mosul have to do with this? The Iraqis are quite ineffective themselves. Iraq has fielded the second worst military in the ME for decades. That’s how IS got Mosul in the first place. The Iraqis threw down their weapons, abandoned their vehicles and fled. So of course they have a huge force to operate against Mosul.

Yes, I think the YPG has a chance against the Turkish military. The Turks are decent soldiers, certainly some of the best locally, but they have been undermining their quality by letting Islamist elements take over in the last few years (the secular basis of their military was one of the main reasons for it’s quality), compounded by all the uncertainty and lowered morale caused by the coup and surrounding events. I certainly think YPG has a good chance against the single Turkish battalion battlegroup supporting the FSA on Euphrates Shield. Like I said, if the Turkish want to send in several brigades, then sure, they can contest the city with 20-30,000 YPG. But short of that, no.

I’m not being emotional. I’ve studied military operations for 30 years. I’ve been doing operations research analysis for 20. I’m being completely objective, looking at the numbers and past performances of the forces involved. In Manbij, the SDF force, which was at least half local Arabs, was over twice as effective in inflicting casualties, relative to the forces involved and the situation, as the IS defenders. Back at Kobani in 2014-15, when IS still had plenty of Chechens, the YPG was getting a 2 to 1 casualty effectiveness superiority over them. Given that the local Arab fighters couldn’t contest Manbij against a slightly smaller IS force without YPG help, it seems evident that they weren’t any more effective than IS, so the difference in effectiveness was from the YPG element. Even if I assume the 50 German KSK and 50 US SF were directly participating, (and were extremely effective) that still has the YPG being more than 3 times as effective as IS in casualty effectiveness, which makes sense, given the loss of most of the Chechens and the general decline of IS fortunes by then. Furthermore, the 50 KSK are still in the area to the best of my knowledge, and would be involved in the Raqqa fight, as well as 300 US SF, or perhaps, as per Anthony Kordesman, several hundred more than that. So, given that, I feel quite certain that a mere 11-12,000 YPG, 300+ US SF and 50 German KSK could wrest the city from 10,000 IS fighters. Let me add the the Western SF present are quite keen on killing all the IS people they can, regardless of what their governments think. They are quite baffled by and hostile towards the CIA and US State Dept.’s schemes via it’s Salafist proxies.

(If you are interested in looking at the numbers, let me recommend the works of Trevor N. Dupuy, specifically his Numbers, Predictions and War; Understanding War; and Attrition.)

I think the US has been trying to negotiate with the Turks, and I think the Kurds have been waiting and watching, to see what the Americans would do and what the Turkish would do. I don;t think YPG has been in much of a hurry, actually. Now that Erdogan has said his troops will take Raqqa, it’s very different.

I’ve never heard any US official say that. However, let me point out that, having spent a brief time in the US military, and having studied these things for as long as I have, I can assure you you don’t really have to be that knowledgeable to become an ‘expert’ in the US establishment. The civilian officials tend to read a couple of trendy but idiotic books and a random think-tank study here or there and think they know all. The amount of stupid decisions caused just by Toffler’s 4th Generation Warfare and one paper that (incorrectly) analysed German armour usage in the Stalingrad is immense. The whole US economic-industrial-military system doesn’t really know how to look for ability, so it looks for shiny but often meaningless credentials.

Military officers here are likewise often not that well-versed in their professions. I recommend Muth’s Command Culture for a good analysis of why that is. Suffice it to say that the actual requirements in place to become an officer select more for social class (ability to pay for college) and physical fitness than any actual command or analytical ability. Examine Operation Gothic Serpent, where one may observe some of the Army’s most ‘elite’ officers, members of 1st SFOD-D and the Rangers in action. Almost every useful decision taken was made by an NCO or junior enlisted person. The officers continually failed to have any idea what to do, and sat stupefied as events unravelled around them. Don’t expect their analysis of foreign fighting groups to be any better.

Lastly, your assumption that regular troops must automatically be better than an irregular militia is in error. Fighting quality varies greater in all types of military organisations, regular or irregular. The Kurds have the type of decentralised, flexible organisation that produces as effective military culture. (Examples: Germany, Israel.) Now, look back to the 1st and 2nd Boer Wars in South Africa. The armies of Transvaal and the Orange Free State were in fact volunteer militia very much like the YPG in organisation. They continually outfought the British in both wars, winning the majority of the battles and inflicting considerably higher casualties per soldier, despite the fact that they were facing one of the world’s best professional armies. They were only ground down by vastly superior numbers. Another case in point: the American militia that began the American Revolutionary War tended to have better success than the Continental Army that Washington formed to replace them. Irregular organisations often have more initiative and flexibility. As long as they have some inherent self-discipline that pushes them to train, they can easily equal or exceed professionals , who, I can attest from experience, often aren’t that skilled.

Yes, I think that’s pretty likely, and that is another reason I don’t expect Raqqa to be too prolonged. The US is probably getting ready to move along to greener fields, so they’ll salvage what they can, and try and ‘sanitise’ the rest, making sure everyone not useful and portable goes the way of al-Shishani so they can’t tell tales. Hence, having YPG kill their no longer useful or effective minions is perfectly satisfactory to them. It also gives them something to brag about, to prop up the pretence that they are fighting IS, which is important domestically, especially with their own military (who naturally don’t like Salafist terrorists), as much as internationally.

Let me offer an alternative take on all this. All the US has done with their various statements of late is tacitly admit they have no control over what is going on down there. So, first Ergodan announced, many days ago, they he will take Al-Bab and Raqqa and drive the Kurds out of Manbij. So, long before anybody cared what the US JCS thought, he stated he was going to do this. FSA-Turkish attacks on YPG begins. Then YPG responds by stating that they ill take Al-Bab and Raqqa, and further, that they won;t permit the Turks to advance farther south. Syrians agree, and declare no fly-zone for Turkey. FSA-Turkish offensive fails, and YPG starts taking territory from them.

So, before the US has said a word, both the Turks and the YPG have stated they will take Al-Bab and Raqqa, and they are fighting each other. The Kurds made their announcement in the full knowledge that they will be fighting he Turks to do this. Only then does Townsend come in and confirm that the YPG will take Raqqa, as if it had been our idea all along. He wanted to make it seem like this was all part of the official US plan, and not that the YPG was actually making up their own plans in conjunction with Syria. However, that offended the Turks, so Dunford has t come along and announce that what the Turks announced days ago is also part of the US plan, even though it’s quite obvious that these statements are mutually incompatible. Meanwhile, US officials are completely ignoring the fact that their two ‘allies’ are engaged in combat right now.

In fact, Turkey and the YPG have already stated quite plainly that they will fight each other for Al-Bab and Raqqa, and the YPG can count on Syrian support for that. The US is left to smile nervously and try to look authoritative. Clearly, YPG think they can take the FSA, IS and whatever small forces the Turks commit, which so far has proved wholly correct.

I agree, Turkey is intending direct involvement. The question is, how much? Putting a single battalion BG behind FSA implies they didn’t want to make too overt of an invasion. But they were counting on airpower, which is now off the table, and the force they’ve got is clearly insufficient. They will need to put multiple brigades in if they want to have a chance. I guess we get to see how adventurous they are feeling.