Pat Lang has published the next move in his wargaming of the situation in Syria, Iraq, etc.:
Russia, France and Turkey have agreed to a one time exception to the Montreux Convention to allow positioning of the French Navy De Gaulle carrier battle group in the eastern Black sea for the purpose of air operations against IS in Iraq. France does not want to participate in Syrian operations. France does not want to lured into overflying Syria. Turkey will allow overflight of eastern Anatolia to and from Iraq. Turkey will also allow forward positioning of French naval SAR at Batman and emergency landings at Batman, Mus and Erzurum as necessary. Russia has offered the French battle group port privileges at Sebastopol for ship chandler and re-fueling operations. France has yet to respond to this offer.
I’m still mulling this second move over. The immediate question that occurred to me was why? What’s in it for any of the parties mentioned? I may ask Pat for a clarification.
He also posits further kidnapping of westerners, no successful terrorist attacks in western capitals, Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, a minor Ebola outbreak in the U. S., Iraq’s Anbar province completely under the control of IS, etc.
Under those conditions what happens in the area from November 5 to March 2015?
My hipshot reaction is that The French would fly a few sorties, run out of resources, and return to the Mediterranean. We would continue flying sorties of limited utility, mostly without assistance from any of our presumed allies. IS would take control of the town of Kobani and slaughter the resistance there, expand its buffer zone with the Kurds, and extend their control in Iraq to the outskirts of Baghdad. There would be an uptick of terrorist attacks in Baghdad.
Republican presidential aspirants would compete on how bellicose they could sound. Democratic aspirants would try to split the difference between supporting the administration and changing the subject.
I read his initial rules and some of the comments. I was underwhelmed, but the French Navy conducting air operations sounded on the level of space aliens. I would be interested to hear his explanation, but I have decided to skip the thing as silly.
There are usually a hard core group of subject matter experts on specific fields, and it is through the combination of their knowledge that a picture can be formed.
The problem is that it takes a lot of time to find and keep up with one of these sites, and then, they are usually too specialized to stay on top of. On other sites, there are too many quality comments.
Memory says the Russians are still waiting on delivery of two French-built cruisers, the transfer having been postponed a bit due to the unpleasantness in Ukraine. So it makes sense for the Russians to give the French a few diplomatic hints about the importance of the two countries working together, and the particular value of a strong navy, and so forth. If nothing else, this episode ought to make Western Europeans a bit happier with Mr Putin and his designs for strenghtning his southen flank. And it would be seen as evidence that the French at least had fully come to terms with the Russian takeover of Crimea and Sebastapol.
So, it’d be a dandy political move in this real world, as well as a step in a fantasy wargame. (Actually, I suspect that in this world the French would see the ramifications of cooperating with the Russians just about instantaneously and choose NOT to move their fleet into the Black Sea.)
Dave- You seem to be coming around to the idea that we have a choice between an extreme response, i.e. a GOP response, and a limited response, i.e. a Dem response. At present we have a limited response, albeit not a perfect one. AFAICT McCain and Butters still run the GOP foreign policy with the new guys coming aboard, excepting Paul, trying to mostly position themselves as even more hawkish.
Steve