Post-Nuremberg Russian-Syrian Relations with Thomas777 - Complete

peculiar circumstances that Syrian people, who are unique people. It's not just some kind of euschauvinistic mythology that the Syrians themselves you know promote, you know, they they view themselves. They're very much the air the kind of like the Hellenic tradition. You know. But when the case of the Soviet Union and then Russia, you know, a major component of the Cold War was the ability to index with both developing societies as well as as well as well

established national cultures in a meaningful way. You were basically like selling your culture, okay, and the case of the Russians, stuff like this was deeply historical in a way. It wasn't for America. I mean, for reasons that I think

are fairly obvious. You know, like what America had is kind of its selling point, to be kind of basic about it, you know, was a technology, a model for prosperity, you know, an opportunity to kind of align oneself with what appeared to be the sewer power that had kind of like the momentum of history and and kind of the glamour and prestige of of what is new behind it. The Russians really, I mean, maybe this is somewhat ironic

considering the kind of dictates of Marxist Leninism. You know, the Russians really kind of sold the Soviet Union, and the Russians today kind of like sell their diplomacy in terms of you know, like them representing a deep and powerful heritage. Okay, And as I'm sure people have noticed, there's been something of an orthodox resurgence which is really interesting that very much owes kind of like United Russia

and not just putin himself. I don't think it's particularly religious, but that it was very much to kind of the you know, Russian public diplomacy. And I mean there's historical and Zeitgeist variables obviously they facilitated, but you know, Syria is very much part of that. Okay, you know, after

I'm jumping around a bit, but bear with me. I cite nineteen ninety nine is the year when not only did kind of the the neo conservative backs truly triumph and foreign policy corridors, but that's also when the Bush Baker concord that they established with Moscow, which is like

shattered for all time. And what shattered it was like the unprovoked and like latantly irrational attack on Serbia, because I mean Serbia, Serbia is the Russian Federation and like the Russian nation, kind of what Croatias did Germany, but even more like deeply felt because obviously, you know, there's a there's a there's a sectarian homogeneity in among Russian people that there's not as part of it, but you know that when when NATO assaulted Serbia, it it was, uh,

it was like it was kind of like viewed as like an assault and Byzantium itself. Okay. Now, Syria obviously is very diverse in sectarian terms. However, there's a tremendous amount of Orthodox artifacts of Orthodox lore in in Syria, you know. And I believe, although cultural anthropologists or relisous scholars will disagree on this somewhat, I believe that Alo whites are are occulted Christians. Okay, even if they're not, they're very much adjacent Oriental Christianity, which itself is a

very or indexes very tightly with Orthodoxy. Okay, So there's something of a special relationship between Russia and Syria anyway, and not to be I mean crash isn't the word, like not to be like overly simplistic about it, or not to like fetishize, you know, racial matters. But I mean if you look at if you look at the Syrian uh kind of like ruling cadre Alo white or Moslim. I mean, these look like white people. Okay, that's not like some that's not just like they're it's not that's

not Telemundo optics. That's not some accident. You know. Traditionally everybody kind of viewed like the Levantine Arabs and especially you know, like the Alo Whites and the Christians is like basically like not a Western people, but like a civilized people. So trying to cast the Syrians is like a bunch of like Beto Win like salavies or something is totally bizarre. Like that's that's like saying like the Japanese or a bunch of like primitive like cave dwellers

or something like. It's really it's really really ignorant. But it's also just like totally at odds with kind of how how Near Eastern cultures sort of like index with the West and with Russia, which isn't the West, but which is you know, a powerful, a powerful cultural force to this day, although obviously not not I know, the same degree as as kind of anglophone societies and mores

have have formative power. But there's a lot here. And if you want to, like, if you want to understand, like why the Syrian War also like Syrian Civil War like cut so deep in the minds of Zionis, Like Russia has been at war with Israel for decades, like intermittently, okay, And a lot of that derives from Israel's ongoing conflict with Syria. You know, as we get into like Russian forces literally went into action against the IDF. There was a huge dog fight over the Suez Canal between Soviet

MiGs and like Israeli F four's and Mirage fighters. I'm talking like the largest like Ariel and like larger than anything happened over Vietnam. This was like a general war between the Soviet Union and Israel. Okay, this is why the nineteen seventy three crisis was so dangerous, you know, Like I'm always saying, that's what the Nixon quotes from the Nickson tapes where he says, like, you know, we can't blow up the damn world for these people, like

these people meaning the Israelis, that's what he's talking about. Okay, it wasn't just an ordinary matter of coldor proxy battle that kind of got out of control. You know. I think we should get a little bit into like Jewish Russian relations it just to kind of recap. If that's not gonna derail the conversation too much. This might have to be like a two part thing. If that's agreeable, no problem at all, Okay. And I know that we've

dealt somewhat with so Jewish relations before. But let me give like a brief, like a little background, Okay, and stop me if I'm I'm kind of becoming too tangential, like for context. By the turn of the twentieth century, like by nineteen hundred, the majority of European Jewry, like as we've think of it were, like lived in the Russian Empire. There was about eight eight point between eight point five and eight point seven million, like European Jews.

Over five million of those people lived in the Russian Empire. They constant do about four percent of the total population of the Russian Empire, and about ninety percent of that population they lived in the pale of settlement, you know, to which they were. They were largely restricted there, you know, like going to owing to both law and custom. Okay, like we got the uh and all, but about like

three to five percent. I've heard varying statistics. I rely on Hannah or Rent for a lot of this because I I don't think people can I mean, people try to impeach her credibility all the time, but like serious people don't, you know, really attempt to suggest that she's not a wasn't a credible scholar, but basic but close to close to ninety seven percent of these these Jewish people in the palest settlement or or it works as like middlemen of a sort, okay, in commodities, you know,

like uh, it was like literally like the converse, like this funny converse of of uh, like the Russian Orthodox peasant population where like the lot majority of them were farmers, you know, like virtually virtually no, virtually none of the people in the Pale settlement were farmers or factory workers. The primary role of these Pale settlement Jews, you know,

they bought, shipped, resold local produce. You know, they provided uh commodities on credit to provide a kind of a basic uh like security to to the standing crops, as well as you know, like more and more speculative endeavors they're involved in in in a state management, you know,

and and and leasing. You know, they held the deed or the title to a lot of productive capital, you know, tanneries, distilleries, like sugar mills, like graneries, and like taverns and inns, which the latter were like heavily indexed with the government because there was the government had and a lot of these Eastern European kingdoms and states like a monopoly on

liquor production and things. I mean, it's complicated, but you know, uh, they were disproportioning represented in the in professional services, namely as doctors and pharmacists, which obviously had you know, some prestige behind it. I mean it's like today it doesn't really, but in those days it really did, you know, And there was a this became an issue during the Second World War as like ethnic cleansing began in earnest I

mean between various populations. But there's a lot of Jewish artisans, you know, like Taylor's shoemakers, guys who understood like medals, how to work medals, you know, specialized jewelers and watchmakers. These guys are overwhelmingly Jewish, and and especially in rural environments. You know, I think we got into before two. These people, the Russian Jews and the and the and the Russian peasantry. They lived in absolutely segregated quarters. Like the Jews spoke Yiddish.

You know, they woren't distinctive clothes. They observed, you know, a dietary regiment totally different than the majority. They practiced a rigid kind of endogamy. You know, they only married within the tribe. You know, they basically like every aspect of kind of like their cultural learning was oriented towards like, uh, the preservation of a collective memory, which was contra that and the majority. Okay, you know they the centers of

communal life obviously were you know, like the synagogue. You know, like in Russian culture, like there's like going to like the bathhouse or sona is a big thing. There was like Jewish saunas and like you know Russian ones. You know, these these people that were not like assimilated into like

Russian society. And it wasn't just like because they desperately wanted to be but like Russians were racist or something like these like these people literally lived like parallel but not intersecting lives and like the Russians themselves, like they viewed Jews as like this kind of the did the culture is bizarre and opaque. They viewed it as as

uh as hostile to the Christ. They viewed it as like unclean, like literally and like ritually like other you know, those were three people, you know, so basically these people on the cross paths in the course of business, which was sometimes basically amiable, sometimes pretty hostile, and occasionally you know, they they'd run across each other, and you know, because they they both had to deal with the same you know, state bureaucracies to which one of the other population was

you know, like heavily represented, depending on mandate and locale and stuff, you know, and I mean like not non Jews didn't even most it was very other than scholars, you know, and and linguists, like almost no Russians even

understoody Ish, you know. And this went beyond just Russia, like in in Ukraine and Lithuania, Lafia and Moldova and Belarus, like we're like, what's now Poland, Like these these these pale settlement people and the people outside the pale settlement, nonetheless, who were like you know, heavily indexed into that cultural milu, like they didn't a lot of them didn't even speak like the national language what we think of as the

national language. You know. It's so there you're you're talking about you're talking about like an enforced alienation, okay, coming from you know, Russian jewelry itself. I don't mean that like the Tsarist system was like we must exclude these people at all costs. Like, don't get me wrong, there was definitely like reciprocal enmity, you know. But it's but people gotta understand. It's like you read you read these like dummy accounts where it's like, oh, there was you know,

Russian and Polish Jews were just like everybody else. But then there was this prejudice that came out in the twentieth century that's totally completely acidine. It was nothing like that. You know, you could make the case in Berlin, which might as well have been a different planet, you know than the Russian Empire. Especially and it's kind of rural geographic corridors. You had Jewish Berliners who basically like looked askance at kind of like there the ostudent their their

ostudent brethren. You know, they they spoke German. You know, they even if they didn't particularly want to mix or integrate with German people, you know, they they kept up appearances. You know, it was totally different. You can't extrapolate that experience or or the experience like Parisan Jews to that of to there the East. You know, like I'm not saying there weren't like enmities in in the case of the former that sort of dictated the terms of cultural interaction,

but it was it was not remotely comparable. It's like I want to move, I want to jump ahead a bit, you know. So that's this kind of like laid so this is the context, understand you know, like the the the Russian national culture and the place of like Jews in it now obviously like the Bolshevik Revolution. You know,

it's kind of mac Donald. He coded a lot of data and he wrote a lot about you know, the outsized role that the outsize role that Russian Jewish people played in in the NKVD and the terror apparatus and things like that. You know that that's all true, okay. And then of course, you know we've talked about you know, Yaqui's view of the Doctor's plot in what was then Czechoslovakia and the kind of purging of these elements from the nomenclatura. I don't want to rehash all of that

because it's kind of too outside the scope. But the point is when people today talk about it like, oh, Russia, Russia is zog quote unquote zog or like Russia is this you know vis a the you know, the the Jewish diaspra or Israel. You're talking about like deep seated hatred and animosity, like real hatred. You know, the fact that like Theians don't like as that punch the air

and like openly curse you Da every morning. But the fact that like Putin doesn't go on TV and like declare that like you know, I deny the Holocaust, and the fact that you know, Netanya who doesn't say inflammatory things about the Russians publicly, like that means absolutely nothing. Like first of all, I mean, if you don't understand politics, if you think it's about you know, wearing your actual

feelings on your sleeve. You don't understand diplomacy, even at war, especially at war if you think that does as characteristic about enemies relate. But anybody would say that, you know, like Moscow is something like love for jewelry is an idiot? Okay, I mean that's not This is a very very very hostile and tragic history. You know, so jumping forward as people know, you know, Stalin, who is the constant machiavellian.

Stalin played cards pretty close to his chest when like the uh when you know, during the when when Israel like you know, from nineteen forty seven to forty nine basically you know, like when when when Israel is a Jewish state it was being established. He did it for a couple of reasons. First of all, because elements like Ergun you know, and Hagan and whatever we're like get war with the British Empire would remained like the falling

British Empire, and Stalin obviously like supported that. But Stalin also like he wasn't clear like what kind of trajectory Israeli politic from take like very quickly, you know, the Soviets like dropped and you know, all appearance of good offices with Israel whenever game clear that this was you know, the the that it was basically you know, a state that represented kind of like the express political will of like radicals and and and highly racializion is and it

was it was just like it was totally off the table for like the Soviets to get behind Israel. And really by after the Suez Canal crisis, like like Israel, like Palestine became like literally kind of like other than other than Europe Central. It became kind of like the conflict diet of the Cold War, okay, and the Soviet

Union literally went to war with Israel. And the key to this, you know, hostilities in absolute earnest really emerge in conventional terms, and the immediate aftermath of the Sixth Day War in ninety sixty seven, this kicked off what was called by the Kremlin as well as as well as by Nasaar's people the Continuity War. It translates Rolphick

to the Continuity War. It so between nineteen sixty seven and seventy three, the story is not only it took a massive reireament and retraining program of the of Egyptian forces. They actually started trying to prop up Egypt when well the sixty were was still in progress. But regular Soviet troops, I'm not talking advisors, I'm talking the Red Army. They took up infantry positions opposite Israeli forces to hold the

Suez Canal line at all costs. There was there was Soviets who were manning the anti aircraft defenses around Cairo. There was a there there were Soviet advisors who were like leading company level elements of Egyptians against the IDEF. You know, Like again, this isn't speculation or or or something or something that was like you know, filtered out of some like CIA memo that may or may not have been an accurate reading of the the battle space.

This is this is this, This happened, This is documented, something that became a grave concern to Kissinger himself as well as uh people at Defense Intelligence as well as the Pentagon. There was uh this So there was a massive deployment of of integral Soviet combat units the Egypt in response to what Israel called depth bombing in the

Egyptian hinterland. Like like basically this this this, this is this is a campaign of strategic bombing of basically like any like any target that uh it could remotely be construed like infrastructural okay, like they're basically trying to flatten Egypt and and you know, like and that and bombed

back to the Stone Age as it were. Okay, Naser visited Moscow secretly on grounds of you know, legitimate urgency, and this accelerated, this rapidly accelerated implementation basically NASA for a head of state, especially in those days when I mean this is obviously like well into like the jet commercial travel era, but for the chief executive of a nation at war to travel to Moscow and say, like we're getting killed like a help, I mean, that's that's

that's crazy. Okay. So from that point forward until the conclusion of the seventy three war, like basically the Soviets took over uh like operational authority, like on the Egyptian front, the Soviet expeditionary force that showed up in Egypt. It was the most advanced element. They had some of these uh like service their missile systems they were using. They

weren't even sending these to North Vietnam. This is like still a spiritmental They were sending like their best man, their best material, their best hardware the Egypt to fight the idea, you know, and contra of what Israeli propaganda was at the time, I think not. I think this wasn't just capped kind of like both to the perception of IDFs aptitude, but it was also kind of like a suage American anxieties, which at that point were at

a fever pitch. You know. These Raelis claimed that by the time the ceasefire in August nineteen seventy, there was like this tascit ceasefire with Egypt. They claimed that like, well, you know, there's this to like our victory over Soviet and Egyptian forces and such, and it's only like a you know, it's only like a skeleton crew or kind of like a token detachment of of of Warsaw Pact

forces on the ground in Egypt. Like that that was complete, that that was completely at odds with reality the uh and and also too, I mean, if you're fighting if the Soviets, and I mean today with far lesser degree, but I think the point still stands in some capacities saying that like the Soviets saying that Russians can't stand

the attrition you're implementing. I mean, that's that's ridiculous. I Mean, the one thing is Russian whatever their problems, and I don't have any illusions about the problems Russians had the Russian Federation and Russians historically have in in military operations. Uh, Like, suggesting they can't handle attrition is I mean, it's kind of like laughable. I mean, that's like the one thing they can absolutely handle. So there's so this uh kind

of bizarre uh state of things like set in. We're on the one hand, on you know, there was a there was this, there was kind of like this the like the official party line in Washington was that this wasn't a meaningful deployment by the Soviet Union, although the theater remains critical. You know, you had the actual Soviet army on the ground like fighting IDF in nineteen seventy two.

And part of this, I believe was NASA's alleged Maine and and and and and then and Naster's successors alledgered Maine because like periodically this was declared nineteen seventy two, there was a quote nquote rift between Cairo and Moscow

whereby Soviet advisors were supposedly like expelled from Cairo. Meanwhile, like the Soviet army again is fully indexed at you know, in the command and commanding control capacity on you know what, on the on the Egyptian front contra I d F and they're like waging active war and you know this, So this was uh that, this was murky as anything was during the Cold War. But that's like the standard rebuttal people have is like, oh but what about what

about the you know, the expulsion of Soviet advisors? But it's like, okay, it also bigs the questions like why this would be some public schism, you know, I mean it's not That's not the way the Communists did things. That's certainly not the way the Russians do things, and

that's certainly not the way Nasaites Egypt did things. There were tensions between Moscow and Cairo leading up to the seventy three war, but I mean literally on the October sixth offensive and in concert with uh, with with with Syria, this was literally planned on the Arab's side by bye, by Soviet command elements, you know. So I mean like if if there was this like a rift whereby like Soviet advisors or something like banished from Cairo. It's like, well,

I mean apparently they were. They remained, you know, like prop practical purposes, like the war planners in Cairo. But the U there's a guy named Victor Kayak and he was a he was a KGB type who in a ninety two back when a lot of these security apparatus types on the Formeries block. I mean they were both

substantially younger then a lot more than we're alive. But also there was it was a rare brought nineteen ninety one to like nineteen ninety six, there was a rare kind of candor that these guys were prone to and in terms of discussing cooler operations. But and Kayak and said, uh, you know it was the KGB like US, US made the kgby quote, the KGB persuaded President Nashoul to wage

the war of attrition to the bitter end. You know, Naster may not, Naser may not trusted the KGB entirely, but he did ask for help, and US, the KGB, the best friend of oppress nations, did help and military gear when it became clear there it's gonna do it on the own by sending in our own forces. That's a quote from Kayagin. Okay, now the actual more matrician

I will bring it back to Syria, I promise. From seventy this involved fighting between not just the idea, the idea f on one side, and not just Egypt but also Jordan, the PLO Kuwait and really kind of the what I think of it is like the step punk the USSR, the Cubans as well as Syria, all right, from sixty seven to seventy is kind of the peak of this conflict cycle, you know, and then did it endure the varying intensities until seventy three, and then seventy

three led to you know, the escalation to the point of of of Defcon three in America and that that changed everything. But that's that that's kind of ahead of ourselves. Following the sixty seven sixty war, there was no serious diplomatic efforts the for for a political solution to the Arab Israeli conflict like the Arab League in sixty seven.

I mean, in the media aftermath there possibly became known as the three no's, you know, no no recognition, no negotiations with Israel, and like no peace until Palestine is liberated, okay. And the Soviets basically they're the ones who, like, uh,

who made this possible. They made the confidence the side on for the the several you know, for the Arab League plus some of these non state actors to sign off on a long campaign all right, initially as it's kind of the the traditional Russian doctrine it like in in the opening cells, as it were, of this kind of period and hostilities engagement form like limited artillery doables like small scale incursions from sign into Sinai and vice versa.

By sixty nine, the Egyptians, uh or at least or at least there's Soviet advisors and commanders judged the judge like company size and forces level, company sized forces and beyond, like they judged them like prepared for like a higher level of operational sophistication. Okay, because it's kind of when

like the true like war of attrition kicked off. I think in like the public mind in terms of people who consumed like global news and things, as well as people kind of on the periphery of of military affairs, you know, extensive aerial warfare like large scale shelling, you know, like commando raids, like you know, combined arms assaults the frontiers. I mean the same as when the war began, but this you're talking about like real clashes of combined arms here, okay.

The Israeli Air Force responded by directly targeting Soviet military personnel. From January to March in nineteen seventy forty eight Soviet troops and pilots were killed in bombing raids at Cairo. And then this there's a suburb of Cairo called that Sure, this was uh, this is where most like Soviet fighter pilots like lived. Okay. The Soviets responded, which was in

flagrant violation international agreements. They deployed S one service their missile system to the Sewiz Canal zone like they were fortifying the Suiz Canal zone like a smaller scale like as deep as Hannoi was, okay, And this led to like heavy attrition. This this culminated in a massive dog flight over a This is the this the operation was coding ramone twenty by the Israeli Air Force. There was twelve to fourteen Soviet Mid twenty ones and twelve Israeli

Mirage threes and F four phantom twos. They it was like I said, it was this massive dog flight in the Suez Canal operational area, like five Soviet aircraft went down. At least four of those pilots were killed. Israeli attrition it's hard to say. I mean, the Soviets claimed it was like far higher than it was. The Israelis claimed

like minimal attrition, but it was probably uncomparable. But the entire purpose of this, by idea app was the lowreer Soviet fighter pilots into in the in the air at air combat so that they could be taken out because I mean, it's cast you will like kill fighter pilots, you know, I mean obviously you know. And but this is for that for the people who claim it's like euphemistic that you know, the Soviets right war with Israel.

I mean this this is my rebuttal okay, I'm in a serious people don't don't claim that the uh in it's aftermath like varying sources like some people, I mean, and I'm talking objective people, not not just Zionis shields or something like some people claim that like well Israel was stood Soviet combined arms and you know they were able to fight off. Uh, you know, they they're able to fight in ways that here there too they hadn't been comfortable with, or that hitherto had been an alien

type of warfare. I mean, I don't I don't know any think that's true. I mean, I think the Soviets brought brought they brought a quality of hardware and manpower and operational sophistication to the table. Obviously, but the idea was used to fighting Arab armies that had real problems

but were basically following warsaw peg doctrine. You know. The American claim was that well, Israel successful and continuing to hold the main line of resistance, which was the Barrow called the bar Level line, and forcing the Egyptians ultimately to come to the table. But uh, you know eventually, I mean, but the but the consensus really on both sides of the Aisle was that this this really kind of sapped Israeli morale, you know, and this this really

this culminated really in the seventy three warrants conclusion. I mean, is Israel had some big victories in seventy three, but they also took some big hits. You know, this wasn't people kind of trying to cast Israeli history as like the Sixth Day War into perpetuity, like oh, these really armies just top notch and they just over all their

ops Like that's not true, you know. And admittedly, like if you're fighting the Soviet army and what was then you know they're cutting edge wartech, like it's not a minor thing, Like I'm not even saying that, like there's some like shame in it, you know, it's.

for israel I mean Israel. Their argument is Israel is forced to accept the ceasefire and and basically a change like a change in uh kind of like the criteria for peace on the Israeli side and just like a holy and just and and they you know, just completely a complete sea change in the tenor of negotiations. But so Soviet air defenses were dropping it for fantoms out

of the sky at an unsustainable rate. The Soviets and the Egyptians proved they they blatantly violate not just proceeding uh you know, ceasefire and treaty arrangements in the theater. But they they didn't care a whit about you know, deploying you know, banned weapons systems to the region. You know, they they were in it to win it. You know ramone twenty, this aerial operation that you know was purposed to zapp the Soviet Air Force tactically. Yeah, that that

that was Ah, that that was a victory. But I think that as part of the whole paradigm, like that allowed the Israelis to kind of accept what there toofore would have been not acceptable to design as hardliners, but will also saving face. You know, hey, look like we we defeated the mighty Soviet Air Force. You know, we we can't we can't be said to have have lost.

So I mean it's complicated, Okay, but like my point is that like Israel's fortunes were literally decided by the Soviet Union, you know, in the Continuity War then in seventy three, you know, so this, I I mean, there's two things here. So I mean this, this is demonstrative of how heavily the Soviet Union and Russia wasn't as like politically invested in Arab fortunes and specifically Syrian ones. But it's also like you think, you think the Israelis

have like good feelings towards Russia. I mean really, I mean it's you know, it's propossible. Is closer to this The main subject at hand, what uh halfes As Sad was doing during this period. Hafesa Sad himself was a MiG driver, he was a fighter pilot. In nineteen seventy one, as a Syrian bath was kind of consolidating its hold, like serious Syrian politics. We were very byzantine and and and a lot of a lot of backstabbing, a lot

of corruption, things like this. Not quite as bad as as the Iraqi situation has developed about a decade later, but it was very chaotic asades A Sad. Really, it's kind of like the father of modern serious political culture. Okay, but that's kind of a subject for another day. But in nineteen seventy one, Halfes as sad than the Soviet Union. He permitted the Soviet Union to open its naval and Tartis and then that the so the Russians community, you

utilize this this base. To this day Tartis is the sole Mediterranean naval base for the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy. Okay, this was this is a big deal, not just in not not just in like you know, strategic terms, but uh it it it demonstrates like a willingness of uh the Russians the sign on for the long term on on on what am also like a

mutual defense treaty. So they've really got like absolute confidence and like the tenure the perennial tenure of of the regime currently situated in Damascus, or they're absolutely not gonna let that regime fall. Okay. Like the Tartars treaty for example,

it runs, it ran it uh. It was set to run for twenty years with automatic five year extensions unless the unilateral unilaterally terminated I mean at uh and immediately immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, officially like a fesisade recognized the Russian Federation as the legal successor to the USSR and you know, retaining all basing rights

and everything else. Okay. During the seventy three war obviously, which was kind of like Syria's moment in the sun, because they proved themselves, you know, that they could think they could function at a high level of operational sophistication. Thousands of Soviet advisors, technicians, officers like combat officers assisted the Syrian Arab Army. At least twenty were killed in action. Almost three fifty funds of aid was airlifted to Syria.

They seelifted at the at the conclusion no hostilities, the Sovietians sealifted over sixty thousand tons materials UH to Syria to replenished losses, you know, like infrastructural military, you know, like food stuffs like you name it. The one, uh, the one kind of blip in Soviet or Russian Syrian relations came in seventy six. The Soviets were just pleased when ASAD deployed the Syrian Air of Army to Lebanon

and something of a diplomatic rift emerged. The Soviets were really worried about a confrontation between the PLO and the Syrian Era of Army, and for good reason, like they were very much at odds. You know, both of them were Moscow clients. This would have this could have been catastrophic in terms of broader interests held by Moscow in the Near East, and like taking sides in the sectarian war between Arab factions. I mean, that's that's always going to

be a losing proposition. The UH. Brezhnev went as far as UH threatening the threatened to freeze UH military aid shipments. This ultimately was like smoothed over like a fence visited at Moscow in nineteen seventy seven, like much fan fear. He met with Brezhnev and Alexei Cossagen among others, or Cossagan, you know, the UH Assade openly endorsed and supported one hundred percent the the the the Soviet attack in Afghanistan,

which distanced them from basically every other Arab leader. But I mean he didn't care like Assad's assad the message, like he stands with Russia. So I mean the final kind of if there was in fact, like a rift that still need a remedy by Christmas nineteen seventy nine.

Like that. What sealed that, like Russian Syrian kind of like the affinity for all time was the fact that Asad said, like, you know, we stand, we stand with the Soviet Union like against its enemies in Afghanistan, you know, which was incredibly ballsy among other things, and it was the right play for Asad, but it was very ballsy. I covered nineteen eighty uh, Syria, the Soviet Union side, the Treaty of friendship really until until it all went

down in eighty nine. You know, Uh, Syria, South Yemen was the only Marxist Leninist Arab state, but Syria was that even though Syria was not a Communist state at all, like they were the jewel in the Crown, a warsaw packed in terms of their in terms of era of affairs and in the Middle Eastern theater. This uh. Gorbachev scaled this back in April eighty seven, but once uh,

but again like within after after. I mean your Russia was a mess like post Gorbachev, but the the any uh any unwillingness other other newly m a stale in Russian Federation, the back a sade like evaporated with you know, the end of Gorbachev's tenure that uh interestingly he met Videv. He was the first run He was the first Russian

president to visit Syria, like uh Putin visited Syria. I believe he was on the ground for the there's two parades or on me a condor a legion honestly, like the the Russian UH military contingent, you know, marched in Damascus after UH after victory, and I think, uh, I can't remember if Pudin was made a state visit there or not, but point being, maybe it was the first

leader of the Russian Federation to visit Syria. Jumping ahead closer to the present for context, you know that this is exactly why Syria was targeted for destruction in tart okayd joined Boshwiti was golf or coalition which was instrumental, you know, and the Syrians deployed to fight uh Saiddam. You know, like any anybody remotely reasonable would view assad As as like you know, somebody who the West wants

on their side. But of course you know he was it. Uh. There's no like strategic logic to trying to destroy Syria and utilizing you know, terrorists and ISIS and and these tech theory lunatics, as is a deadnaz strategy. At the onset of the Russian intervention in Syria government forces, they controlled only about twenty six percent of the country. You know, they're truly beleaguered. The UH. You know, Russia was fighting the Islamic State, they were fighting the el news for affront,

which is basically al Qaeda. These the guys, like John McCain said, are like are great guys and are like, you know, fighting for democracy. He was talking about al Qaeda, John McKay wine. He said, we need to support al Qaeda to murder the Asad family. And I guess everybody else who like al Qaeda doesn't like, you know, great

guy Thatjohn McCain. The UH. Putin and I mean for context, I mean Putin is constantly cautious, as I think people know, which is ironic that he's painted as this like mad, reckless mad man, like he's you know, he really it really uh disturviced uh to the Russian State that he's he's he's pissed poor at at decision points. I think, Okay, so it's not that he's prone to ultimatums. It's not he's prone to absolute declaration of the matters of war

in peace. But uh, Putin said that the you know, the Bath regime is absolutely not going to be allowed to fall, you know, And he said, we don't negotiate with terrorists. Neither does not neither does you know, President Asad? And I mean that was the core of the issue too, Like there was still it was on a tail end of such things. There was still an America supposedly fighting

the global war on terror. I remember like a Bath Party spokeswoman who I can't remember her name, which she was got of this like severe Arab lady of whom there are many, but uh, she was addressing some British media contingent and she said, like, we don't negotiate with terrorists. We're not We're not gonna let We're not gonna let al Kaita. We're not gonna let Isis. We're not gonna let some constellation of of jahadas, you know, forced us

to change the government by murdering people, you know. And I mean there was this they're just kind of like dummy silence by these media people. Then you know, when they're like the great chorus of talking about like how evil Lacade is. But I mean that's really this to me is really this is when America lost all credibility in foreign policy. You know, you're like you're literally saying that you're you're arming and equipping al Qaeda to destroy a secular regime led by a guy who's an eye

doctor who was raised in London. You know, like it's I mean, that's it's not this isn't even like a you can't even raginalize. They hadn't under you know, some kind of appeal in Machiavellian necessity. It's just like it's just bizarre. It's it's just like it's just like a bizarre uh scorched earth position, you know, uh that only makes sense designs, you know. Yeah.

You know, like they had they had goops like Peter Arnett, but like there was this they did this big interview with a Fez Astad who people viewed as a compelling guy, you know, and he kind of came to dominance, oh to the Gulf or coalition, you know, and uh, people seemed grateful for that, you know, and I'm sure like Baker State Department was. But it's like if you you know his like we paid back the Asad family by arming al Qaeda and like calling for you know, Bishah

Asad his family to be murdered. I mean, like like who does that? You know, Like you can't there's no percentage. And uh, you know if you if you lay down with pigs, you're gonna get dirty, you know. And not not only gonna get dirty by dealing with America, but they'll they're gonna try and like arbitrarily murder you at some point, you know what I mean, Like this isn't that it's aside from like the naked irrationality of it. I mean, you you can't conduct politics that way.

But we should probably wrap it up because I'm coming up on an hour and my our dear friend, uh Jay Burden, I gotta he's hosting me in a minute on his show. But I'm started to break this up into two segments if that's not what you had planned. But there's a lot here. Is that cool?

to like, and I'm very honored by that. Put they put that in the description line. If you would please.

one of the reasons why Israel is so fixated on Iran. Admittedly, then Yah was very clumsy in the way he articulates propaganda. I mean that that's just a fact that I don't think that can be denied. Ariel Sharon didn't have a lot of finesse, but Sharon was something of a military prodigy at these comparative terms. And obviously then Yah, who doesn't possess that skill set. However, the his blass Syria, the Syrian ara of army, you know, and in the

art forms of the Russian Federation. You've kind of got to look at all those actors. It's kind of operationally integrated. You know, there's nothing conspiratorial there. I mean, these are these are israel primary ops, okay, And you know, like we've talked about before, and anybody who is it all knowledgeable about the conflict paradigm dynamics understands that Israel and

NATO to varying degrees back you know, these Salafi elements. Okay, that's something of a detonation strategy, you know, because they identify their their primary ops is is Syria hissbil uh you know hasibial a slash Iran, I mean in all but name his as kind of the Iranian foreign legion, and the Russian Federation is part of that is like an essential part of the constellation. And this goes way back.

And that's ket understanding the state of war and peace in and occupied Palestine, and and and and with respect to the Jewish state, they saidly so they I mean, Israel essentially has two problems. They've got this internal crisis, demographic crisis relating to the fact that Israel is a racial state, you know, and they've got this unmanageable majoritarian population.

It's like super majoritarian population. You know, it's not their strategic situation is not unlike they're the Republic of South Africa around the time of Bota, you know, when the when the kind of permanent emergency set in. You know, I mean, I'm not I'm not comparing Israel to the Boer Republic at all, unlike cultural or ideological or ethical terms or anything like that. But in terms of the military situation, there's a parallel, you know. And so they've

got this internal, this ongoing internal emergency. They've also got this geostrategic problem, you know, with respect to what they call the Shia Crescent, which I mean, she are obviously very much the minority in darl Islam, but there's there's a critical kind of like the Shia heartland, you know, is is I ran in Iraq obviously, and it cuts across the region in the Webanon, you know, So it there's a that's that's a very dawn thing. That's a

very daunting arrangement, you know, in a general war. It's a discussion of another time. But it kind of begs the question like why exactly Israel maintains nuclear arms. You know, some people argued it was a prestige and cloud move during the Cold War. Being Prebaal, he basically suggests it's like a Samson options sort of thing, whereby people wouldn't let Tel Aviv fall because there'd be this uncertainty relating to what they would do with these weapons of mass destruction.

I think that's a bit too imprecise, Like it's not really a military imperative. That doesn't mean it's impossible. And Israel is kind of strange in the way they approached things because they're a totally abnormal state, invokes novelty a lot and discussions of you know, dialectical processes and things, and but he was he was kind of reluctant during the Cold War to like diagnose, like then current strategic matters.

But the exception was kind of the case of Israel, and he made the point that you know, Israel is not really Israel's not an anachronism in the way some people on the left would talk about it and still

do to some degrees. It's not like it's not like it's a retrograde state like colonial power or something, despite you know, a lot of the a lot of the propaganda in the era of that effect that it derived from the same kind of like dialectical process and like causal nexus sociologically, historically, ideologically speaking, is the Third Reich in the Soviet Union, Like that's why it's so strange.

I mean, obviously, Department of State, in the executive branch, they're constantly claiming it's a liberal democracy, because I mean that that's just a floating signifier that's suggests moral approval. But even even where that not the case, it would be difficult to describe what exactly Israel is, you know, it just would be because it's it's it's not just an outlier like North Korea is owing to its to

a strategic situation. And it's not like one of these emirates or one of these small countries or constellation of a sovereignties that you know, like rolled by a monarch or something. It's it's something totally different than that, and it very much belongs to the twentieth century, the twentieth century dialectic. But anyway, kind of bring it back. The consensus these days is essentially that the seventy three war

was a stalemate. Okay. David A. Korn he was a diplomat back when Department of State was still a trithin quality people. And he's he's written a lot, he's contributed to a lot of articles, especially to publications like Foreign Affairs, you know, things like that. He served he served for some time until eve as it's called the political officer and Hansho what's called the political section. That's kind of

like a halfway. If you're in that role, you're kind of halfway between an intelligence officer and a diplomat, you know. I mean, everybody who's assigned to a diplomatic posting is in some ways an intelligence representative under light diplomatic cover, and everybody knows that. But guys like Coren they deal more in diagnostic analysis and things, and they're then they're not just going to cocktail parties and and kind of trying to dominate, you know, palace intrigues and things that

determine what the true seat of power is. You know, they they've got a more they got more serious roles in that. And he made the point pretty consistently that one of the reasons why the paradigm is so volatile Israel contra the that Shia Crescent, the states that constitute that you a strategic concept. One of the reasons that's so volatile is because you know, there was the outcome was it's not now it was a no clear victor on the Syrian front. Is the outcome is poorly understood,

you know, especially in Israel. It was retrospectively deemed a success because there was some big there, there's some there's some major kills scored by the idea AP in some cases where they were pretty seriously outnumbered, like combined arms. But the fact that they kind of convinced themselves of this, they led to a false sense of security, especially on

the political side of things. The military IDEAF whatever it's problems, it's it's military is pretty serious because they have to be to sustain the status quo, you know, and as people on the left, they don't so much anymore because the intellectual left is kind of dead. But during the Cold War and even beyond the event into the nineties, they make the point that IDF is I mean, yeah,

they've got a National service law in place. You know, it's like young people get drafted, but generally they get drafted into support roles like you're talking about like special operations, capable elements and like infantry elements. You basically have to sign up for that, and the guys who do, they're going to be pretty racialized in the first place. That's why they want to do that kind of work. And even if they weren't before, it's going to become that way.

You know, Like they there's no pretension in an army, like the idef of like, hey, we're a political we don't you know, take any position. We're just we're just like loyal to the state. I mean, part of that is because the fact that this you know, that Israel's

find itself in a ross and creed. But part of it also is that, you know, again, like Israel's not it didn't develop organically like a European country did or something, So there's not there's not this tradition of like an Israeli state that's you know, they like the post medieval heritage of the people who live there or something. You know,

Israel is the Jewish state. The way it's configured isn't really important so long as it is capable of sustaining that demographic balance and being able to perpetuate its demographic supremacy despite being massively outnumbered. So you're not gonna have I mean, even if the just under those conditions like you can't mean, I guess I'm getting as you can't extricate those conditions from like ideological and parabise. Okay, So

that's probably a force multiplier in some ways. Like when IDF actually goes into action, it can also lead to some bad outcomes because it's the institutions like that, particularly military institutions. We're having the wrong opinion can be interpreted as like a breaching doctrine or something. It becomes this kind of like ideological ghetto, you know. And Ehud Barak, he's really the Israeli guy I pay attention to. Okay,

he's an interesting guy. He was a military man, you know, like career idef type, and he's not a particularly charming guy, but he's really kind of been the only champion oft jitsuk ra Being's memory, you know, we're being of course, is unceremoniously murdered in ninety five by this crazy young

guy who's like rotting in prison now. But you know, I I'm not gonna say there was some conspiracy to whack Rabine, but a lot of people were happy that that that that that happened, and from that point forward, Israel became a one party state, you know, and Rabine was going to Rabine was was looking to commit to some way out of the racial war. Okay, I don't think that would have I don't think you ever would have seen any kind of like formal equality between the populations.

Nor was Rabine just gonna throw his hands up and be forced into the position that the clerk was in South Africa and just say, okay, we're you know, any any any any man or woman of majority within Israel Palestine, or we're just gonna have you know where, We're gonna give them the ballot and and see where the ships follow. That wouldn't have happened, but some kind of extra case

and from grant apartheide would have happened. Okay, But Barack, Ehud, Barack, he's the guy who made the point as well, that really was keeping that Nyahu alive politically. It's the fact that swapping out the civilian executive or kind of like rendering it headless, like if you Dona was removed by no confidence or if he was indicted, which you may

very well be if and when this war results. But just perverse incentives that kind of pursue like bad strategy is what I'm getting at, okay, and and what Barack is getting it. You know, people turn around, I know what I hear from them, and they say, like, well, how does real performing so well? If what you say is true? Well, two things, like I said We're talking about basically two totally different conflicts that are related and increasingly is she and soon you are breaching the sectarian

divide to tentatively cooperate against the common Zionist enemy. But the gods of situation and in the situation in the Levant and syria Is are two different things. I don't feel comfortable going as far as to say that they're just like two fronts of the same conflict. I mean, there's like a common nexus and causes, but it's more complicated than that. However, you know, idea got caught lacking when Hamas assaulted. I think I covered this on a pod,

so if I'm repeating myself, forgive me. You know, on October seventh, Price it's almost been a year. But when Hamas breached the barrier fence, they assumed that the lead element was gonna get wiped out, you know, basically like a company sized element like storm to the mainline of resistance. But when they did that, there was nobody there, you know,

like these Raelis were. It was like a skeleton crew that was not abiding any kind of alert deployment at all, Like some of them were literally sleeping, and Hamas just like waxed them, and then when they broke through, immediately Hamas like immediately started storming the breach with like as many men as they could get through as possible. You know. Then ID have like swarm drones on him and combine

garb and sort of like hosing them with fire. But my point is that shouldn't have happened in the first place. You know that feel like if when that'd be like I point, it became clear the Russians were going to like assault you know, don Bass to like relieve they're people who were under pressure there from these guys who were like supposedly like irregulars like Azo, but were very obviously you know, very obviously like acting as official you know, and in the service of the Kya regime. That'd be

like a point. It became clear like Russia was going to assault these like as of guys, and uh, the Ukrainian armed forces like preemptively like assaulted them then like broke through the Russian mainline resistance like ended up in Russia. Then like the Russians had to reconstitute like bring up their bring up bring their firepower to bear on them, like in the form of like armor, and you know, like hyperbard artillery and stuff like get the situation under control.

Like if that had happened, like Putin would have been gone. You know that that's that's that's a catastrophic fuck up. So you know, I'm not I'm not saying like, oh, IDF is like a shit force, because they're not. But there's real problems there, okay, And this isn't just like some like intelligence failure or something.

kind who like sustain the military apparatus. Those people are aging and there's not a lot of young people to replace them, Like there is a hard line Jewish right, but more and more it's that's kind to be constituted by the people who are called correctly or incorrectly in clogial terms like the ultra Orthodox. And they have a strange they have a strange and somewhat contentious relationship with the military. I mean, Israel's got real problems, you know.

I mean they that they can't be denied. So I don't doubt that guy's testimony for a minute, But I mean, like why would he lie about that. That doesn't if he was going to try and make if he was going to drop some kind of cap to try and make the situation seem less severe than it was, or to try and make Israel look like more cable with

your role. Like you wouldn't say that, but you know the degree of which two you know, Israel had to kind of Israel kind of had to win in Syria, Okay, if they could have like knocked out a sod and like crushed the string era of army. And also like hit Hesiblah and like really really hard because the idea's been smarting from from their fight with HESBLA in two thousand and six for almost like twenty years now. You know, they really kind of needed to make a statement like that.

And if if it's if Damasks had gone down in flames and Syria kind of became partitioned, they the would have been totally fine with like these lunatic killers, like

isis controlling like some chunk of it. You know. Then they wanted to like basically like you know, create some like fake like Kurdistan like through like you know, a swath of Iraq and like assimilate part of Syria into that, and then probably like have some some zone that was like occupied by America but it was technically like you know, the a d m Z or something or some kind of like free zone. So it's like okay, then like basically like they've sown up, They've sown up their problem.

And also too then like the Russians can't like access like their key port there, like the Russian Our Federation can't deploy there. That would have solved the like basically like that that would have solved like one half of the equation, you know, and then they could have brought like full firepower to bear and you know, one hundred percent of forces and being like to bear like on Gaza, and there's really nothing anybody could do about it. So

the Russian the Russians really food barred their program. Like the degree of which they did, like can't be overstated. That's why like when I say to people, like when I point out to them the fact that you know, like the Ukrainian War is literally like a secondary front. I mean, it's not secondary to people there. It's a disaster and it's scale, it's it's it's just like a they're is suffering and death is staggering. But I'm saying, like to Israel, that's like a secondary front where they

can bring pressure to bear on Russia. And the fact that when I raise that to people, they look at me like why would you say that, It's like you really don't understand that Russian Israel are like hate each other. You know, they're like literally like mortal enemies. You know. It's like the fact that Putin doesn't like call them the K word and like shake his fist in the ear and call for them to be destroyed, like you know,

like you sound like Arab strong man or something. I guess people are so literally minded they can't like compute this or something. But the fact that like you know, likeever Offen going around like calling for some like pogram of like Ukrainian jewelry or something like. I don't know, I don't know how people can't discern this. But that's really what's so dangerous about this situation. And that's also

why it's also like NATO's being so reckless. You know, if it was just a question of we want to murk the Russians and moving forward, you know, we want to ford deployment where we can. That's like farther east and central these are the you know, the central Asian land mass. You know, then then Germany is that America wouldn't be going about it. And it's kind of like

just like catastrophically reckless way. It's because it's you know it, this is this is a this is like a key front of basically of of Israel's war to survive and perpetuate it as like the Jewish racial state. You know, that's also what it likes the Lenski's in there like outfront like that that's not good optics at all. And it's not just that the Ukraineism and Alibi like, oh no, we're not you know that this isn't some criminal psychotic regime.

Look we've got we've got the Jewish guy out fronto. You know, it's involved in the entertainment business, and you know we're a normal country. Like that's not why they're doing it. It's because, uh, there's no way, uh, there's no way some like boyish front man would would be trusted there because I at any minute, like he could flip, even if he wasn't intending to that, he could find

himself in a Melosovitch situation. We're suddenly like a bunch of band right, So like, look, we're like tired of this, you know, like we were not gonna like we're gonna keep killing the Ivans, but we're not. We're not taking orders from from his zid they call them. But that's you know, that's and Syria is an important country and it's got an outsized significance. There was I know that your friend he was asking forgive me for being a little scared, or he was asking about why there's panthers

in Syria and Lebanon. One of the reasons why part of it is because of the peculiar dynamics of the Lebanese Civil War that went on for decades, and then the French were kind of backing all sides in that war depending on like who had the upper hand, that's what the French do, and the French like shove some

panthers into the breach on on the Arab side. But there were a few dozen Vermacht officers who serving the Court of Nasa as well as in Syria both before and after, you know, the Syrian Bath conquered the political culture and the Czechs the Skoda Arms Works, which is

kind of like the Czechs make great weapons. They're like the Transylvanian Saxons historically, and like the Skoda Arms Works, that's kind of like the Czech counterpart to Krupp that during a comunist Czechoslovakia there are so many panzers and like various like warsaw packed armies and adjacent armies. They started like manufacturing replacing parts for panders and also too obviously that's what that that's that's what these Vermachs guys

were familiar with. You know, and that's then that's why that's the armor they knew how to fight in and habituating yourself to a new tank model that you can do it if you're a skilled tanker, but it's hard. Franco Spain in nineteen forty three, they got about twenty panzers like Mark four panzers that they'd ordered and Serrano Sooner, who's a great man. I'm like Franco, and he was like a diehard national socialist. He was constantly looking for a way to get Spain into the war against the

UK in an official capacity. And after negotiations it broke down because like Franco was like a ludicrous demands that were you know, purposely that personally sabotaged any agreement between you know, the the Reich and Madrid. There was still hope and the Pandras that arrived like towards that end because people thought so highly a Sooner and I mean German counter legion had like spilled blood on Spain. I

mean that was sacred. You know. These Mark four as they got were like the same ones that like the pans are arm used. They weren't these they were they weren't the like off brand like knockoffs, you know, they were real pantheras and like most of them had never like been deployed anywhere. So the Syrians got they the Syrians got like a bunch of like brand spanking new like mark for panders, and they also got some like yeah, they also got some yag coons are like tank killers

like what was called assault guns in those days. So yeah, like in sixty seven and seventy three, like there was a there were panthers like assaulting idea, which is pretty pretty cool.

but uh, I'm like a very Anglophone person. So I've got I think every I think every angle Saxon is something of like a an orientalist. So I find I find Eastern people is very interesting for various reasons, you know, as did guys like Johann Van and Lee and a lot of these National socialist guys who ended up in

these Arab states. It was twofold. On the one hand, they're like, okay, well, we've got to accept Cold War realities, but there's room to there's proverbial room to breathe and ideological and cultural terms in some of these places in Latin America and the Near East, and there's people or remain receptive to our ideas and kind of want to be shaped by our ways. And uh they were also kind of like the shock troops contra Zionism, you know,

So there wasn't ideological component to it. There's like incredibly silly propaganda and cap like put out by guys you know about oh, like you know, Islamism is is just uh, it's just this sort of anti Semitic, you know, Nazi conspiracy. I mean, there's like very stupid stuff that affects. But there was an is ideological affinity between people like the Syrian bath and and and national socialists. That's not the reason why. Like I mean, I like the Syrian people.

I know a lot of Syrians, and I hold in a highest scheme. I think I think they're interesting in like a cultured people. But they also you know, if you if you there's some of these are are are with the Third Reich and what it stood for, you know, the obviously like a like like I think too too much. Croatia was the only it was the only true like national social estate that existed at the day to feed. But like an adjacent political culture is like is like

bath is Syria? Like absolutely so yeah, I mean that's not to your point, Like it's not it's not totally all base or anything. But I'll i'll movie ahead. I realized I'm getting tangential. But the you know, in the the Russians cultivated. I can't remember how much we got into this. I should have reviewed our earlier episode before, like like yesterday this morning, So forgive me again if

I'm repeating myself, please call me on it. But you know, the the Soviet leadership, they really they really cultivated and like vice versa. You know, like I the naval basic tartis, which is essential, it's the soul it's the sole Mediterranean base for the for the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet to this day, that was a big deal after if the Suy Union went down the assade and the Russian Federation worked out that this is like like the so is that like permanent rights, like the Tartist Naval base.

You know, it's uh and it was it was. It was a sad. I mean, it takes nothing away obviously from the game. That's the Syrian Air of army and and and their toughness and there and they desire to win and things like that. But during the seventy three war, you know, which which males is called the Ramadan War, Alo Whites and Christians call it a couple of different things, or just the nineteen seventy three war. The Israelis call

it the yan Kapoor War. But you know, like we like we talked about, there was thousands of advisors, technicians there, there were there were special operations type Soviet true, it's about twenty of whom died in action in seventy three, you know, and over close to four thousand tons of aid you know ammo uh like ration packs, you medical supplies like you name it by the by the conclusion by the end of October, you know, it's a station

about still is immediately beyond the Soviet Navy. They'd see lifted over sixty thousand tons of gear like weapons again like weapons, AMMO, food stuffs, agricultural commodities to Syria or replace its losses. I mean, that's that that's a huge effort, you know. And as as we talked about, there was some tension from about seventy five to seventy seven, I

guess the Syrians directly intervened in a webinon. There was this kind of tense minuet because you know, the PLO, the PLO, despite its, despite his like declared secularism, was always you know, like a like a Sunni outfit, and the Soviets were really concerned about, you know, active hostilities breaking out between the Syrian Ara of Army and and the plofes. Asad was able to smooth that over with

skillful diplomacy. But what really what really kind of solidified their relationship even in the midst of some of these like interscene conflicts between Soviet Allied elements, was Asad Asad unconditionally backed like the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and he made a lot of people really upset by doing that, you know, like within his own within Darla Islam, you know, but it was it was the right play considering the circumstances.

And it was also essential, I mean building during the Cold War like that, that kind of consensus building across a national frontiers was essential, you know, And it was, uh, the kind of last hurrah of that sort of war in peace diplomacy was Bush forty one's like quorum that he gathered to wage the Gulf War, which was an incredible which was a master stroke, you know, but that was I think of that as kind of the book end of the Cold War and the entire prodige and

of course the Physicsade you know, the syiener have already deployed, you know, to back to back US forces and of course America. How is America like pay that back by like trying to murder the Assade family. It's it's it's unconstable, like it's it's a vile I mean, aside in the fact it's it's totally irrational, but it's just it's just vile,

Like you don't do that. April seventy seven as Asade, he made a state visit to Moscow and he got an audience in the president himself as well as Alexi proceedon Kaseigan, you know who were I mean basically got to meet the old Control Group of the Soviet Union. I mean for for a small, you know, underdeveloped country, that's that's pretty remarkable. And they signed h they put pen to paper on what was called the Treaty of Friendship in nineteen eighty, you know, less than a year

after the Soviets assaulted Afghanistan. And that was that was not a that was not coincidental. That was very much Taylor to send a message to the world. And subsequently there became a permanent gar sin in Syria of Soviet troops.

You know, not only were the balk Assyrian weapons you know, coming from Warsaw Pact, you know, the Soviet Union itself, the d d R, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, what have you, but also like North Korea, you know, like Syria, because there wasn't the only uh, the only Marxist Leninist Arab state was South Yemen, you know, so having having an ally in the Arab world, which again Syria had and has something about outside profile and conceptual terms, this is this

is a big win for the for the communist world, even even though the Syrian Bath was not particularly empathetic to doctrinal Marcis Lentinism, but that, you know, that's the degree to which the Soviets became tolerant increasingly of what a lot of people would have viewed as kind of like a third position as tendency. That's very that's highly significant. And of course that's kind of stuff that guys like Otto Riemer and and George Switzer, Vierick and Ah Thompson

and Francis Yaqui. I mean, that was their whole that that was their whole kind of diagnostic prediction, you know, and that's one of the reasons why they did this. Incredibly ignorant people who they like to bandy that there's some kind of third worldism. I don't even know what that means, but it, you know, within the X time, within the extent paradigm of the Cold War, this made absolute sense for you know, anybody who was on the you know, on the national socialist or fascist side of things.

You know, it's it absolutely tracks. And Carrie Bolton, he's one of the only he's one of the only kind of contemporary I mean, he's an old guy now, but when I take an temporary, I mean like somebody is active. He's the only sort of like to like dissident, like like national socialists, like academic writers. I take really seriously like he's great, you know, and I he's kind of an eccentric guy. He's some of his interests are kind of eccentric, but I you know, he's his his viewpoint

is closest to mine own out of anybody. He's kind of active in writing about you know, political theory and national socialism and stuff. In twenty ten, Medgetev became he became the first president of the Russian Federation to reciprocate and visit Syria. I think, like I said before, I can't I cannot remember if when the Russians after at the Syria of Army routed isis you know, there was a there was this parade for the Russian contingent there there reminded me of the Conor Legion parade. It was

I thought it was really cool. I was. I watched it on there's a YouTube stream that came through live at like three am. And I can't remember if Putin was there or not, but regardless it was you know, the first state visit by a Russian Federation executive. It was mitigative and that was ah, that was a big deal too. And obviously in twenty ten, like less than a year later, you know, the civil war kicked off and that that wasn't that that wasn't uh, that wasn't accidental.

You know, ever conducts I can't remember we got into this or not, but the did it to understand the situation in Syria with Isis al Qaeda on news refront the the Salafi terrorist elements who were assaulting the government. These guys were these guys were rapidly successful. You know, like obviously they had deep support you know, above border

or not from from Washington and Tel Aviv. You know, they the Syrian government by the time of Russian intervention, they could be set in control only about twenty six percent of the country. I mean, they had Damascus and they had most of the built up areas that but

that didn't matter. You know, when the integrating between Damascus and these kind of like outlying territories that were held by government forces and and UH and adjacent allies, it was they couldn't operationally integrate with the forces and being that they had. That's one of the things that the Russian Federation brought to the table, you know. Russia also they showed absolutely no mercy to these to these Salafi Islamis, you know, the they were practicing a scorched earth campaign

against them. But that's what so the most horrifying modern more footage I've seen is when Isis they assaulted, they assaulted the suburb of Aleppo, and they beheaded all the males, you know, from like little kids to like military age, like teenage boys, to like old men. And it was like this forest of like heads like impaled on these steaks, and these Isis guys, Uh, they were doing their they were doing one of their afternoon prayers and you know,

they were on their prayer mats. Like it's probably like a whole platoon of them, and there was just these heads, you know, like it's it's like something out of a horror movie, you know, I mean, that's those are the kinds of animals that American Israel returning it loose on on Syria as a dead nation strategy, you know, and to the Russians, I mean, God bless the Russians for like blasting those guys to help. But you know, the

that that's probably the greatest victory, like battlefield victory. The anybody like who should be you should view as like an adjacent element if you're right wing. That that's really like what the what the Syrina of r and the Russian Federation and his block accomplished there other than operations storm like when the Cross routed the chet Nicks and like liberated the crying, that's like the only thing in

my lifetime that was comparable. So when these like demento internet guys like don't go outside or something instead of talking about, say love Ukraine, it's I realize like how sick these fucking people are, and like I'm just like delusional, you know, like they don't they they're they're like they're either like ops or like masquerading as being like right wing, or they're or they're just like or they just like

think that ship's like video games or something. I don't know, but you know, I make the point again and again if you don't if you don't understand that, like the Syrians are like your allies and and this this is an international struggle you can't isolate it and say, like I don't care what happens outside of America. Like that's this that the basic bitch like white and words stuff. But it's also like you're not in the game if you think these things occur in isolation. You know, whether

you like like globalism or not, it doesn't matter. Like it's you can't ignore gravity, you know, it's it's the same thing. Globalism is like gravity. The power playable paradigm you live under is like the weather. You can't change it.

I mean, I mean, you can change it, but if you got to like work within its parameters, you know, like saying you're a you're you're gonna like you're gonna take some like non position owing owing to some like ethical orientation that you know, you convince yourself like means you like rechecked like the prevailing the prevailing order that I mean, that's that's that's that's meaningless and in playable terms.

But you know the UH plus too, that's when the Russian Federation like finally drew a line in the sand, you know, and I had they not, I I think Russia would be an even worse shape today than than than it is. Okay, I'm not saying bad things aret Russian people. I mean, the Russians are in a desperate situation. Putin said that like demand like like like I said, is not going down. He said, the bad regime is going to remain at all costs, and that and and

he and he delivered on it. You know. That's that's that's what's kept Russia alive, is in in Warranty's terms, you know, like, had had the Russians just allowed Seria to go down like they they would have had a cascading effect of of of catastrophes. You know, you've he developed certain instincts for identifying what events are gonna have those sort of seismic kinetic effects. And you better believe if Damasius had fallen, that would have been one of

those events. Uh. It's also it was executed pretty splendidly, man. You know, I'm We've talked a lot in various capacities, and I recommend you know, super off. He's most known for Icebreaker, but his book Inside the Red Army, you know, it's about the state of it's about the state of the Soviet Army, you know, basically in the in the in the later bresident of the era and something that remains this day and something that preceded the Bolshek Revolution.

You know, the Russians big thing, the big military science imperative is to do everything possible to like overcome fog of war issues, you know, situational awareness issues within the battle space, you know, by eradicating and certainties. So they treat they treat battle doctor and almost like a Western army or like or like the US Army would treat regulation. It's highly inflexible, okay, but for what they rush. By

the way the Russians fight, it does work. And the combined arms the Russians brought to bear against isis like cut them to pieces, you know. And it was absolutely you know, like a like like the Russians isn't just like rashally deployed. Like I remember, I can't remember his name he was. He said black guy on I don't even think he's on TV anymore. But he was kind of like he was kind of like mini me Lester

Holt or something. He was. I mean, not that Lester Hal's any great shakes, but this guy was like he was kind of like the bush Ley Lester Halt, and he was he was talking to he saw its like uber Zionists, like like Nato Schill, like idiot who was like a light current, like a retired like light colonel or something. And this guy was dropping Cavaboll like, well we saw him, Chuch, beyond ninety four. The Russians can't fight. It's like, first of all, those you know twenty years ago,

you fool. Secondly, it you know, if if that was a state of the arm front of the Russian Federation, frankly wouldn't be able to deploy a scale the Syria at all. You know. It's it's not like he would have been able to like arrive in the battlespace, you know, deploy in depth and then and then and then completely food bar the operation. I mean, they definitely could have

lost it. But and I'm not going to suggest that the rush An Army deploying the Syria as like something on order of the British accomplishing that kind of logistic what mirrorable they did at the falk Whens maybe two or something, but it was was pretty damn impressive, okay. And once they were able to essentially like immediately drop like you know, five thousand boots on the ground and a whole gang a mid twenty nines and some kind of sex stuff like thermobar re artillery and things like that.

It's like, okay, I mean, i it appears as if like the Russian army's back. I mean, the Roginary performed pretty well in Georgia in two thousand and eight, but there were still there were still problems. I mean, there's problems today. But the you know, I nobody who's not resorting the kind of callow propaganda, very deliberate sword is is going to say that, you know, the Russian operation in Syria wasn't impressive or something. You know, it's but uh,

moving on, Yeah, it's uh. The Russian the chief of Staff of the Russian Air Force grass him of, he stated in twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen, like in twenty sixteen, like twenty seventeen, there's kind of like this big like retrospective on the Syrian operation, and part of it was, you know, like a Russian flex like hey, this is what we did. Like you know, rah rah, we're back. We you know, we we're a serious you know, we're we're we're serious military power again. But they carried out.

They carried out around twenty thousand sorties, like like yeah, between like eighteen and twenty thousand sorties and there was over seventy thousand strikes on what Grass them off called quote the infrastructure of terrorism, which what I take that to me is like a lot of ground assault type stuff like basically like it has blood on the Seria Army going into action, probably backed up by some Russian armor and artillery, and then like basically like the Russians

that uh, they like pound the hell out of Isis positions from the air, you know, like in immediate advance of that combined ground and element you know, which would then like encircle these positions with kind of like textbook like Warsaw Pag deep battle just like smaller scale you know, and basically treat basically treat the operation as as like you know, the advance of fire wherever possible, you know, like lay as much fire as possible on the opposing

force to kill it, you know, and even overkill it. You know. It's not exactly a lot of places to hide in the in the battle space and the uh there are some very serious fighting in Damascus, but I believe by the time there are friends of the Russian Federation arrived on the ground. I believe that it basically resolved, you know, the had the Russians had to route Isis

from demand. I mean, I it might be an improper counterfactual because like if Isis was holding Damascus, it's like what I mean that would indicate the war was over. But it the point being, you know, they that would have changed things, if that would have changed things, if like his Blah was charged basically it was like liberating Damascus.

I mean, like what do you that would have kind of neutralized Russian firepower too, unless they were playing on like leveling the city without regard to without regard to you know, friendly attrition and things. But yeah, it's uh yeah, I I guess we went on an hour. Yeah, I'm sorry, those two like heavy on the military side of things. I'd like to I realize we still get a grip

of our Gladio series. There's if you want to do like an epilogue in this, I mean, it's totally up to you, obviously, it's just so literally there's something to be said for like the the Jackson Vanic amendments and what led to its passing and the whole kind of narrative of Soviet Jewurry being like under threat and you know, the g r U and the kg D quite literally uh establishing a directorate to monitor Zionism. I mean this,

this is part of the equation. I mean there's a lot to the Russian Syrian relationship and and just kind of like the Russian you know, Russian enmity with with Israel. And we could definitely go like another hour on that if you want, but it's totally up to you. Just let me know what you want to do next.

the description, that would probably be cool. But that's otherwise. Man. I'm I'm I'm trying to get a jump on my I make progress on my my manuscript stuff, my long form written stuff, especially causin I'm gonna have to travel a bunch this winter, which I didn't, which is is fine. I am blessed people enjoy my company and want me to go places where they're hosting things, but I didn't. I didn't think i'd be like hitting the road again

until like springtime. So I'm gonna try, and you know, like the next month, I'm I'm hoping I can have like a workable manuscript. It just takes time, especially when you got to properly like cite you know, your data on things. But that's what I've been up on.

remains a condo philosophy. I mean there's something that's that's a deeply psychological mechanism, you know, and there's like sociological locations to it too, but in more kind of prosaic terms.

That that's an important point because I'm always emphasizing to the fellas who don't remember because they weren't born yet, that media narratives like however corrupt they were corrupted they were by ideology and like conceptual biases, they did in fact build on a continuing foundation of historical time, you know. I make the point even really up until two thousand, kind of like the last instance of this in this in the spring or it was like summer or fall

of two thousand. I remember this vivid lead because I made my dad really upset, and he went in this local radio show to talk about it, the show Beyond the Beltway that used to be like based here in Chicago, and me and like my then girlfriend, we went down to the studio to meet him, like in the loop.

And the subject that my dad was on this panel with this like foreign navy seal guy and this kind of crusty older dude was a civilian, but he'd been on William Odom's staff in some capacity but Peter Arnett, and this is one of the things that kind of crushed his career. I mean, he was getting old up there in years anyway, but he broke this story where

this guy claimed that. First of all, guy claimed that he was a deserter in the Vietnam War, and he claimed he ended up in Laos, Okay, and he said there was this village like full of like you know, like young white men who were like married to Indigenous women. And he's like, what's happening here? And they're like, oh, we're all deserters. This is like our commune where we're like escaping the war. And if anybody who knows the history of the conflict, that's preposterous on his own terms. Okay,

there's no way that happened. But he was or that was taking what this guy said is fact. So our nets like, well, like what happened. There's no record of this place. So this guy's like, well, you know, he's like Army special forces arrived one day after they bombarded us with nerve gas and everybody died, but I was out in the fields that day or the rice patties, so I escaped. And he's like it was called Operation Tailwind,

you know, and my Dad's like, this is outrageous. This is outrageous is being reported as news, And how dare this guy like defame uh these Special Forces operators? But did it takes that real? Seriously? You know, he was a civilian, but he got to know a lot of these guys very well, you know, and he takes he

takes the honor of such people seriously, you know. And I mean for me, I mean, it was just I mean, aside from that, it was like, I mean, our NETT was just like lying, like it's if you're a serious journalist, this guy's story was preposterous. You know. Like I said, I was, I was like twenty four to twenty five years old, and I was just kind of like a student of the Vietnam War, and I'm like, there's no

way that happened. And of course it broke that this guy with some crazy liars, that our net kind of disappeared. But it was a big deal, man, because you know, even twenty five years after Saigon went to put you know, Vietnam was still on people's mind man, you know, in conceptual terms, it was one of their main kind of like pull stars of historical events, so that it doesn't really that's it's just like not the case anymore. And part of it's deliberate. It's like a deliberate sort of

like whitewashing of the collective memory. They're not so much just kind of like erasing the collective memory of historical time. But it's also these narratives increasingly are just kind of generated out of nothing, you know, They're they draw upon these kinds of like endure it this kind of like enduring phraseology that regime information or propaganda. Oh, let's disseminate,

you know. So there's a certain structure to it, there's a certain conceptual structure, but it's very much like it kind of like every every aspect of it's just kind of like autonomously situated in a psychological terms. It's really weird.

But in any event, even uh, even to the late nineties, they when when there was when when when any kind of crisis was an emergent between like Israel and it's and its enemies, they there there'd be contextual references to the Ramanan War, which they called the yan Kapor War, in the nineteen sixty seven Six Day War, which was Israel's greatest victory. That's not just cap that Israel had. They were unusually larded with military talent at operational level

for various reasons. And I mean that was so that was a big deal. And that's kind of what the myth of Israeli military supremacy like was emergent, because in sixty seven it wasn't a myth. I mean, on the one hand, like modern combat resolves rapidly. That's why I

was trying to beside the people. You know, they people get a corrupted view of this because pretty much like the only like the only wars in living memory involve uh, these kinds of nonsensical paradigms were like you know, some Pentagon guy or some State department spokesman or woman is suggesting, well, we're making incremental progress, you know, like the he's kind

of like endless deployments that don't resolve anything. Like people think that that's normal, Like they don't understand that even on condition, even under conditions, they're relative parody, you know, like modern combined arms war. It's battles are usually massively one sided, it's usually your route, it usually resolves like within days, you know, but just the same uh, the idea's performance in sixty seven was unusually strong. But all of that, all that basically came to an end in

the seventy three war. And it's significant to us. I mean even people who aren't particularly invested in Israel Palestine. I don't think that's a correct disposition because if you know, within the current paradigm, you you can't just kind of like select, we choose what you quote care about that wasn't of caring about it either, Like everything is impactful.

You know anywhere that anywhere that the US forces are deployed under roscas a NATO or the ADF has deployed you know, with the full with the full faith and blessing and operational integration with an other the United States. You know that this has this has implications for everything

that occurs in clinical nature. But you know, in seventy three, I I believe that that was a more dangerous crisis uh modality than the Cuban missile crisis, like the cubansical prizes, the way it was unfolding in real time and the way these Soviet naval vessels were approaching Cuba and there's a question like will they run the blockade or not, or like how will this resolve? Like and and as like the days and hours were away in Kennedy's war room.

You know, people got the perception that this was especially critical, and it was don't get me wrong. However, there was nothing approaching strategic parody. Then in nineteen seventy three, there absolutely was, like the stories didn't officially accomplish like strategic parody in terms of forces and being you know that were in fact deployed until seventy six or seventy seven.

By seventy three, that they they had the capability to absolutely devastate Western Europe and the connell the United States, you know, and uh owing to command and control duances and the shrinking of the window where human decision makers are capable of reacting, you know, that window of opportunity to render decision had had shrunk dramatic from a decade previous, you know, And so I maintaining that nineteen seventy three when America went to deaf Con three, and it's the

only time that's ever happened, you know. And for context, it's not like during the early years the War on Terror with those like goofy, like color coded alerts, like today you look at terror thread as purple, so like chovid drubel up your rest or whatever, like you're supposed to do. It wasn't like that, Like, it was quite serious. And at deaf Con three, you know, basically that means America shifted to a war footing and missileers in their silos.

They strapped into their siege to prepare for deep impact and awaited launch orders and like the little doors like atop the silo went like you know, which is kind of horrifying. But and Brezhnev he mobilized the Soviet Union operationally. In some ways they mirrored the NATI or order of battle, but in other ways they were totally different. But they had you know, America's kind of America's kind of rapid reaction force during the Cold War was uh, it was

the eighty second Airborne Division. The Soviets mirrored that, like the Soviet airborne troops and at that point were like an air assault element. They they went on high alert and they were preparing to deploy to the Middle East to relieve the Egyptian Army. You know, so this was this was really really bad. But that it's interesting that that's been conspicuously absent. I mean it's to somebody in my age, the absence is conspicuous. I haven't read one

reference to it. And since the IDF assaulted that Russian target, which don't get me wrong, happened many times before, okay, but it does constitute, if only in the court of public opinion, and public opinion in wartime takes on and outside significance, it does represent a kind of escalation that, you know, the idea of is flagrantly assaulting Russian targets. And it was one thing to do that during the

Serian Civil Wars. Nothing to do that now, But I would think that any newsman or lady would, you know, kind of like invoke the seventy three war as the direct precedent to conteptualize what's happening, you know, and they're not doing that at all. So that's just something that sort of jumped out of me. But like moving on

to you know, the topic of the day. You know, once again, I as I indicated, I don't want to sound like some crazy old person, but if I'm repeating myself, let me know, because I do forget sometimes where we left off, and I try to refresh my recollection from the last episode, but it always I don't always have time to like totally go through it. So I'm not gonna be offended if if you stop me and say,

like we're already covered that. But I think where we ended, we were talking about, you know, the Russian Federation in Syria, and how one of the major, one of the major foreign policy moves, even even in the Yeltsin era, was to absolutely you know, guarantee that you know, the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet could still base in Syria, and the Syrians were still obviously very much amenable to that. But you know, despite even even Jelson's either you know, apathy or gross

in confidence or combination of both on parapelitical matters. You know, it wasn't just him obviously either. It was you know, the the the equivalent of the General Staff and the enforced the Russian Federation and and in the Foreign Ministry and other things. But they even when they were not at all in a position to you know, be pursuing a true kind of world velt politique strategy, you know, they made sure they locked in a continuation of of

good offices with Syria. You know, and this is the nineteen seventy one Naval Treaty that was signed with Halfes al Asad. It granted the Soviet Union. He basically understriged the access to the naval basic artists that it had built and they continue to this day, you know. And if the treaty runs for twenty years and there's automatic five year extensions and it's one of the parties oppsiturnity agreement, but it but it's it's a rubber stamp sort of thing,

you know. And the the Syrian state, Hauf as Asad, who passed away in two thousand, he was one of the first uh heads of state to recognize the Russian Federation. You know, basically immediately as a Soviet Union became the Russian Federation, he recognized it and made clear that the Syrian government was going to abide any and any military agreements, and specifically the the naval treaty regarding tartists. But you know, and the UH I can remember got into this or not.

We were talking about the Continuity War between sixty seven and seventy three and how the the Israeli air force, you know, they fought this pitch there was this pitched air battle you know, between the Israeli Air Force and

and and Soviet megs. But during the during the the Ramedan War, Jogapor War itself, Uh, you know, there's thousands of Soviet advisors on the ground as well as you know, direct action military elements, you know, technicians, know, a veritable battalion and technicians to assist the Syrian Arab army and you know, to maintain their equipment and their armored platforms, their aircraft, all of that. And at least twenty of them died the Russians, So at least twenty kia and

probably more. I mean, that's just what the Kremline acknowledged. But there was a during the war. There was over thirty seven hundred tons of aid airlifted to the battlespace by the end of October ninety seventy three. By sea, the Soviet Union that transported sixty three thousand tons to Steea or replaced it's military and infrastructural losses. That's a

massive commitment in relative and absolute terms. I'm not sure people recognize that because you know, America throw his money around like water, and it's constantly just like dumping these like aid packages and secondary theaters that this was a big deal. Okay, I think I got into the fact that there was some tension in seventy six seventy seven

between Damascus and Moscow. The Syrian Arab Army deployed to the Lebanese battle space, which put them directly opposite the PLO, and you know the PLO the Popular Front and the Popular Front Delivery of Palestine. They were very warshaw packed adjacent. There's a big concern in the Soviet camp that this would upset the kind of delicate balance that was in place in the Arab Cold War as it's called. This was remedied basically one hundred and ten percent when the

when the sovietwents were in Afghanistan. Because I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, either, I guess aside immediately like declared like solidarity with the Soviet Union in in the war from in Afghanistan, and obviously I put him at odds with basically every other Arab government, you know, and that that and that's huge, it's and it's always

it's significant too. I mean, because the there's obvious and inherent tensions between the Soviet between there were between the Soviet Union and I ran and there out a day between the Russian Federation and Iran. Some of these a sectarian and religious theological. Some of these are ethnic. You know, I that the persons in the Russians aren't aren't particularly cozy. But there's there's a very large Azeri minority in Iran,

you know, Amadina Jods and ethnic Asiari. There's there, there's there's some bad blood there, you know, aside from the intrinsic value with Syria in absolute geo strategic terms to the Russian Federation, it's it's also very much like a con it represents kind of like it facilitates concord between the Russians and in Tehran in a real way. You know the UH I'm sorry one second, oh, and it's in UH in April of seventy seven, like it has this kind of Lebanon situation was developing as he had.

He traveled the Moscow and there's some interesting sort of like cool footage that the Russians shot, and there's there's also some there's also some British UH media guy in the ground. The British were very well, very well indexed with the Soviet Union and in terms of media for whatever reason. So a lot of this, but there's this this footage of Hafesisa arriving in Moscow and receiving you know, like great honors. You know, it's really it's really interesting,

and especially for a small country. You know, it's Syria has a very outsized relevance for this reason. But it's uh he he got a side gottage an audience with Bresnan, but uh with Alexei Pasigan, who uh was uh he. The way to think of him is he he was

kind of in the role that Lavrov is today. You know, it's an imperfect analogy, but for foreign policy purposes and Warren peace terms, especially like if he's a via the Arab world, it tracks and you know it's not that's that's no small thing and it's not you know, that's why when people when people talk about the assad family like they're they're like you know, like like they're like

Saddam and his clan, they're there not at all. You know, they're they're facade was anything but just some like tinpot dictator. You know, I mean I I I think they're I think the Syrians are a noble people generally and I find the ASSAD is particularly impressive, but that that's not that's not just that, that's not just cap I mean

a conceptual bias or something. You know. Fesisade visited at Moscow again in early spring eighty seven April nineteen eighty seven, and he traveled there with the then serving Defense minister Mustafa class and he has to require the this advanced service to air missile system it UH and Gorbachev denied it, which is really interesting. And this was during a time when it's a critical period when when when avionics were becoming hyper advanced. You know, obviously the stealth but like

the beef stealth bomber. It was a very different kind of plaid for him than those that the these missile systems that the Syrians wanted to acquire were tailored the as a counter measure for But that that entire sort of like skunk Works series of projects that was the emergent from this, that this kind of culture of high

tech adeonics. Okay, so you know the Syrians were asking were requesting this for a reason, you know, they they need they desperately needed countermeasures because Israel, uh Israel and in Western Germanian the Cold War they were getting America's

best equipment. I mean the Germans and their own right, I think the I think the Leopard tank is the best, like modern bail tank, like hands down, but the but they the West Germans and Israel I mean in the in the in the former case that you know what, obviously cold residencies, the latter was ideological and the ladder obviously still this is the case in terms of what they received. But they weren't getting like, they weren't getting

like knockoff versions of of American aircraft. They were getting the real thing, you know. And this obviously decides to give the Syrians pause because even before even before UH, stealth technology became the norm, you know, long before it advanced avionics were making it increasingly difficult really to but he developed any counter, any counter versions at all, and the Soviets UH. One of the things the worstaw packed

did very very well was aircraft countermagers. Okay, particularly service the air missiles, like you know, the old the old book and film Flag of the Intruder. It's it's a dumb movie, but it's a pretty good book. If you're in the air where.

this kind of like wild guy. But even he, like fu sorties were downtown Hanoi is like a terrifying prospect for American aviators because other other than Moscow, like it was like the most hardened like target on this planet. Like that. That's not that wasn't creative license. That was including the book or something. And that owed the fact that, I mean the Soviets built it up to make it

that way. You know, it wasn't it obviously there was you know, they the Vietnamese are and industrious people, but they they had nothing approaching that kind of technology. And you know, they the Soviets knew that. I mean that was before the sound of Soviets split. But you know, the like like the Chinese had nothing remotely honorable, you know,

like the the chadac On equivalent was junk. But in any event, so this was, uh, that was kind of a turning point obviously in eighty seven when Garbasheff refused basically the kind of honor the good offices that had been sustained with serious really since day one, at least, you know, in as regards military necessities and exigencies. But you know, that was the what what garbage off was

attempting to accomplish. I was writing something about this the other day, but that's kind of a subject for another episode. I know, if if we go off on that tangent like we'll be here all night. But it is uh that that that was definitely like a novelist though, you know, like I said, it even even even under Yel since tenure, the you know, the Moscow never made any indication that

they did any intention of abandoning Syria. But moving forward, what's I mean obviously it was most relevant to the president is you know, the Serian Civil War, you know, and I it's it's hard to diminate really what's what people are thinking in Washington because you don't have a serious foreign policy establishment, and you haven't since you know,

nineteen ninety two. But when Obama's people, when they were saying that Damascus is imminiately going to fall, that that that was that was in fact accurate at the outset of the intervention, the Russian intervention, and there's another case of pot putin waited far too long intervene. I mean it it's a credit to the Syrian people, you know, those loyal to Asad and the Hezebla and those Russian forces were deployed. That they won, but it was becoming critical.

You know, the the Syrian government they officially only controlled about a quarter of the country. You know, the statistics separated is like twenty six percent of overall like territory. And how how much that territory you can deploy in depth or defend it. I mean they had they they had the built up areas buying large but you know they were they were essentially there was this there was this garrison. Demaskus was like becoming a frontline city, you know.

And assad Uh Asad sends his wife away, and he sent his Asad away, and you know he I developed huge respect for Bashar the son because he said, I'm not leaving Damascus if I have to well die here and that's you know, I'm like, Okay, this guy's a real man, and he's a real president. You know, he's he's a real leader of he's a real worldlord now, you know, because that's the way it has to be. But you know, when the Russians did arrive, you know, they rapidly integrated with you know, a lot of the

Syrian Arab Army defected. You know, I think a lot of that the degree to which that Sunny Bath elements and the Iraqi Bath and the Syrian Bath Party are very different animals, but there is like a common ideological core and there's and there's a common sociological rationale to like the men who were in our heavily index with the party, and you know, a bunch of Saddams officers who were you know, part of the Sunni minority in Iraq,

like they clipped they clipped up with ices basically immediately, not all of them, but a lot of them did. And they were accepted by these guys, which is really interesting. And some of the same thing happened in Syria, you know. And the uh, the Syrian Bath Party even like at the top, is more ecumenical than they're credited but it still is. I mean, it's it's basically, you know, like an an Alley white like minority rule situation. But and

it's it's interesting. And in May twenty ten, like before the formal on set of hostilities, Medvedev had visited Syria and that mid Medviedev's like brief ten, you're as the president is interesting, man, and it's interesting how we became. It was like out bad with Putin subsequently. But it's pretty obvious that NATO Israel and I'm sure their proxies in these isis types as well, because those guys weren't stupid.

They realize, you know, look, the time to move, you know, the time to truly escalate is when the Russians are are having some kind of crisis of leadership, you know, or if not not, if not so much a crisis and a literal like you know, war in the Kremlin, like happened after a drop off died. You know, you when the civilian executive is kind of headless, that that causes problems. You know, it causes problems in terms of like grand schemes, peated decision making, it all the way

down to the operational level. That's That's when I really when Yahoo was secure. Unfortunately, because even people who despise them, you know, they're playing musical chairs with with the civilian executive. Is not what you want to do at war. But

because it may. When the Russians did deploy, they immediately integrated, you know, with Heslo and the Serenira of army and comand control capacities, you know, like like deeply and this how this you know, there were the Russians no like wartime diplomacy, man, I mean that during the Cold War, I'd say the key ways I mean NATO had them beat in all kinds of capacities like material, political and otherwise.

But you know what the Russians head was. I mean they had firepower, obviously, they had a very tough and game population in the Russian people, but they were very they weren't aren't very adept at like war and peace politics and that uh that that that's how they were able to accomplish that, you know because like I I mean obviously especially considering the the tactical situation on the ground in Syria. I mean, Habla wasn't about to say,

like we won't index with the Russian. The Russian federation. But there's always tensions in trying to integrate a command and control structure, you know. And this was accomplished seamlessly essentially. But the well, you know, the Russians, they the Russians brought in like real firepower to bear. You know. The Russians can't do high tech like America can. But the war tech as during the Cold War is now was

good enough. And the Syrian intervention and the way they you know, they they pursued it truly scorched earth policy in the on the in the battle space, like against their against the up for and it paid off, you know, the and and Putin declared in knowing certain terms that you know, the the like the Asad government is not going to be allowed to fall. There is some momentum behind Syria two in the quart of world opinion. It's like we talked about, I'm not successful to propaganda, and

I mean I I'm not some young naive person. I was legitimately horrified by those scenes from you know, like the subbers of a Lepo over these these Isis barbarians. You know, we're beheading people and putting heads on steaks. You know, like I said, I saw the video of them, you know, they were doing their afternoon prayers and their prayer mats and uh, there's like a forest of hits. You know, it's it's like a horror movie. But you

know people were seeing that kind of thing. And I remember a Bath Party spokeswoman in knowing certain terms, telling some European media type like, look, we're not we do not negotiate with people who we will not negotiate with. We're not going to change our government because terrorists are are bombing us and killing people and beheading people. Like what that's you can't ever allow that, you know this is and you know this was also too when the

War on Terror was still on. It's like, so you America is telling us and telling the world like, you know, we're waging the war on terror, yet you're you're trying to bring down a secularist eye doctor who it's got like a pretty wife who looks kind of like any white woman in the United States, and you're saying that like isis are the good guys? Like that's that's really when America lost all credibility, you know, like even more so, I think than the Iraq fiasco, because that was just

like laid there. You know, it's like we will burn down civilization and hand it to barbarians. You know that basically a cow is what we want, and that's the opposite of civilization, you know, the same nothing of the fact that that's I mean nine eleven should never happen, but it did happen, and it's like okay, so okay, decades on, you know, a mere decade subsequent like now, now, now you're willing to like accept that as you know, just kind of like the verbial costs of going business.

It's like, that's that's unconstable. It scoresesque, but you know, and then Putin clarified in twenty fifteen. It's really interesting too because when speaking of the Medvita situation for three four years, when when Putin, you know, he's kind of like second uh permanent tenure as President of Russian Federation, there's this kind of window where we're speaking very candle I think I think Putin quotes himself pretty well generally, but he plays up post of the chest and issues

he's like non answers that policy questions. There's like this brief period of a few years where he was he was kind of trying to like humanize his image. I think I remember in October twenty fifteen. Yeah, it was like it was like October November twenty fifteen. He gives us an interview and he's like, look, he's like this, He's like, you know, our the Syrian intervention was prepared well in advance. Despite what made have appeared, we weren't

just responding to an emergency situation on the ground. We knew that America and Israel wanted to bring down the bath regime. We consider this unacceptable. We still do. It was really interesting things like he'd never think. He just doesn't talk that way anymore, you know. And one of the things people criticize him for is is this kind of like ambiguous language about Ukraine. You know, oh no, this this is a special military operation, and you know,

not not being clear about objectives and things. It's it's very different, but I think it's relevant, you know it, I know it is. But uh, the uh in Putin's terms and uh Russian speakers I'm sure will suggest and suggest correctly. This is an imprecise, imprecise translation, but it's the most coherent when I found, Like, in the same interview, he said quote that that the objective wasn't remains quote stabilizing the legitimate power in Syria and creating conditions for

political compromise. And that's very much a Putinism. Putin's always resorting the you know, the rules based international order that purportedly exists, and like, I understand why he does that, but I think the time has passed for that those sorts of appeals, But it's just it's just interesting, the uh and if I can't remember, we dropped the brass tax, like the like the literal numbers of what this operation

constituted in Syria. In some ways, especially considering a lot of the discussion about the deterioration of Russian capabilities, in some ways, this was as much a coup in world opinion terms as the UK's effort in the fault Ones, you know, because people were, I mean, Washington's always suggesting that Russians can't do anything right in military terms, but even relatively serious people were prone to talking that way.

But the Russian Air Force, it carried out over nineteen thousand sorties, seventy one thousand direct strikes on what they called the quote infrastructure of terrorists. You know, I interpret that in like real human language, not military language, as a combination of you know, ground support, attack missions, you know, as well as uh you know, as well as bonding of any positions and things. But i uh, close air support and direct support of ground element forces is what

really carried the day. And again, the Russians they've always viewed warfare as as kind of the advance of fire. You know, they're very clouds of woodsy and they're like literally clouds of wits end in their perspectives. You know. That's who train them to fight modern war. You know. It was uh clouds with himself and officers and there are for the Russian Federation on parade they still you know,

perform the goose stuff. This you know, not a coincidence because they they think it looks really sharp, which it does, but it's because that's how they learned drill, you know. And this, this, this solidified Russia as a as a real military power on the world stage once again, you know. And that's why it's there's it's not as like a conceptual bias or like a categorical ignorance, when it's both those things too. What you know, like the honest of

facilities in Ukraine. Like however mismanaged that war has been and it's kind of like grossing is managed on on the Russian side. Okay, But this idea that like Russia lacks the capability to deploy its scale, It's like, what are you talking about? I mean that that's that's at

odds of reality, you know. And if you're gonna if you're gonna fight the uh, you're gonna fight the arm force of the Russian Federation like literally on their own frontier, you know, the the direct precedent that cons that bear as well what happened in Syria. You know, I not not make a mistake. I there is no like military objective on you know that that Ukraine is pursuing because there's no there's no path in victory in military terms.

And it's but if you accept that, you know, US, NATO, Israel their only interest is you know, and it is in creating attrition. You know, it's uh, it makes perfect sense. But this idea that these these it's not as these fools like blinking either, like as you know, there's this people. I don't think there's any serious people in the foreign policies stay asman, but even people less kind of you know,

out of it than he is. You know, they were talking like, well, yeah, you know, the the Russian mainline resistance is just going to collapse. You know, the moment basically we start popping off combined arms and you know from a borough communitions or whatever, and and then like the you know, the the United Russia is just going to collapse. It's like what are you smoking? Crack Like that's you know, the one thing, the one thing the Russians have going for them again is the fact that

they can bring firepower to bear. They've got a very game population, and I as long as as long as Putin is alive and relatively healthy, like United Russia is like never been stronger, like they're Their problem is that apparently they can't achieve consensus on who on a man to take his place. But this idea that butth of

Russians literally took twenty five million dead. You know, if you lose one in seven of your population to the Wehrmacht in four years, and not only do you not fall apart, you you can reconstitute into a superpower, albeit a crippled one, immediately subsequent There's nothing sort of incredible, and I think I think it's basically unprecedented, you know, like some some sort of comparable scenario or a state endoors that level of devastation and is able to you know,

it's not profit from it to uh, you know, immediately reconstitute and project power in a way theretofore unthinkable even prior to the onset of hostilities. But you know, the uh, that's one of the reasons why I mean the the You've got to understand the Ukraine War as as literally like another a secondary front, a secondary theater of the

same conflict as was underway in Syria. And one of the things facility Russian facilitated by Russian victory there was not just clout in the national stage, but uh, it basically guaranteed them access to the Eastern Mediterranean, you know, and uh uh from there you can stage you can stage comment operations like fear wide basically, you know, including in places like Libya that for reasons, some of which are within the bound rationality of ah, you know, NATO

decision making, and for some reasons they have it Libya that makes sense. There's some that don't. But like point being, Russia absolutely can deploy their in depth if they're not tied down in their own frontier viause of Ukraine, and that's really the key to understanding what is underway there in in in in like hard material terms, I mean. But the Aside himself apparently on the h on the eve of Russian intervention, he I assume this came from

his general staff, and I the Seriennery of Army. I know, people claim that they're shit, like the Egyptian Army or something. I don't accept that. I don't accept that because of the nineteen seventy three war. And like I said, the issue with the Syriennery of Army, it wasn't that like they were getting mauled in the field. It's that basically like this soon he said, like we're not gonna fight

this war, you know. But Asad again I'm certain through like his general staff or its equivalent, they issued this series of reports to Moscow saying like this is the this is the tactical situation, this is what we absolutely need,

this is what needs to be brought to bear. You know, they basically like identified and characterized up for and like how it was hurting them, and in a very concise and clearheaded way said like this is why we're going to lose this war unless you're able to deploy and guarantee A, B and C, you know, and that that events is like a remarkable level of trust because like among other things, if you invite a great power and in very reduced terms, Russia still is a great power

in relative terms, although like nothing you know, like a superpower.

You know, you invite the Russians to deploy in depth and in hand your command control mechanism over to them, they may will just decide that like now serious part of Russia for all practical purposes like that that's not just cap like when people like you know who's going to attack one, Like it's it's no small measure inviting like five or eight thousand like armed Russians and their common aircraft and guys in their general staff like into

your country and saying like okay, fellas, like you know, do do you do best? Then implement like death at scale among like those people, but then like kind of

politely bow out when it's done. I mean, it's it's a rare case, like real kind of like respect and reciprocity at like cultural level as well as practical levels but yeah, and that's why, uh you know, like I said, if I could, if I can meet the when I go I head to state, like I found a little interesting as Bashar al Assade, like you know, he's uh, he's a fascinating dude, and I find it highly relatable. But yeah, the I think that's uh, yeah, I was

gonna get at some point. And we covered some of this in earlier, I mean in like a different series.

I mean we were talking about, you know, the the Jackson Vanic Amendment and what prompted it, which wasn't a large measure, you know, the the public bro and the Supreme Soviet moving moving to literally like outlaws of Zionism, like it became it became a political crime against the state to you know, like advocate for Zionism, you know, and there's a party official in in April eighty three, they're like this full page this full page ad titled

quote from the Soviet leadership laying out the case against Zionism as as as viewed from Moscow, which is fascinating, you know, and this and then subsequently, you know, that's when you started hearing in media this narrative like like a Soviet Jews the right risk of annihilation. You know, the Soviet Union is this you know, anti Semitic country. I mean they've been at war for decades already, but

it's it. Uh, it took on like an over the you know, an above board like character, you know, and this, uh, the the you know, the purported plate of Soviet jewelry. It it was something that was endlessly bandied about by not just NGOs and sympathetic media people, by the Reagan administration like it's really it's really wild. And you know, speaking of cold war movies or cold war theme movies, then we Firefox is a really good movie. This if you can, I mean you've got to look like the propaganda.

But I when I was like a little kid, my mom and dad, I want to see it with them, and it like blew my mind. But uh, you know, one of the subtexts of it is that you know that Clint Eastwood is like the Russo American like non era combat pilot. You know, he uh he goes hit his mission is like steal uh what the then fictional mid thirty one, Like there is an actual mid thirty one.

It's it's call signs his Fox bat But it didn't exist when Firebox came out, but the the med thirty one, Firefox is like the super plane and it directly interfaces with the pilot's brain waves, so like if you so you think commands to the central processing unit and then it responds. And because Eastwood in the film, his character is this Russian guy Russian to he he speaks Russian, you know, so it's so he can think in Russian

to manipulate the avionics. But any event, like a subplot is there's this Jewish avi ONYX engineer and the Soviets are basically they're like threatening to like waste his family if he doesn't build the Firefox, and like uh, at one point, like Queneatwood's character makes conted with him and he's like, yeah, you know, like the the Soviets are, you know, they're they're as bad as like the German Reich.

And that's kind of like obvious propaganda insinuated, you know, But that he like he even that wasn't just like Hollywood stuff like that's that was the narrative being presented, but that that's kind of a tangential when it's a long topic. But yeah, I think, uh, I think we're coming up in the hour. Yeah, no, that's uh, that's about all I got for this series. I don't I

don't want to break off another like subtopic. Man, And forgive me if I repeated myself, but uh, yeah, I think uh unless uh and unless I'm I got a real gap and uh my recollection, I think we I think we covered quite a bit of the of uh what's relevant you know over these past few sessions.

It is basically a reducs of when when SOLMANI was you know, it was the same thing. It was just like it was just like very very controlled response. You know, the target the areas targeted were like exclusively counter value. You know, it was announced that this was going to happen,

So that's the way I read it. And it's more for the benefit of like they were in regime despite the time about media says this, it's not like the Taliban or something, and it's it's also like it's already they actually hold election as and I ran all the time, and like the regime does have like certain credibility problems, but like I'm a Dana Jod. You know, he was not only in a Zeri, but the reason he's were

that like members only jacket. I remember, like media people that make fun of him, but it's like the dude work he was like an he was he was he was like an oil rig worker or like a pipeline like a like a foreman, and like that's why he was trying to look the part of like you know,

mister like a Zeri working man. He was like this big like socialist kind of like labor leader like Rabel Rouser, and like the religious authorities didn't like him at all, Like they basically allowed him they into the top job because they had to, you know, and so talking about something is alamist. It's like this most like you like looking crack if you think that. But point being Iran's it just gets it's a complicated situation domestically and the

regime there. They do have to cater to public opinion more than people acknowledge in the West, and especially if it looks like I mean, even if even if these like retaliatory strikes like don't mean anything, it doesn't matter. It's for domestic consumption anyway, you know, like Iran's Iran's ground element in real terms is hepla. That's my interversation.

dead in a few months. Like, no, you're not gonna do that. No, his was They're they're no joke, man, They're they're definitely the most capable ground element other than IDF in the region.

I got my own website. It's Thomas seven seven seven dot com number seven h O M A S seven seven seven dot com And I got uh, I got like merse that I sell because owing to popular demand. I'm not trying to be corny like that's literally why like I started doing it with my friend and partner in crime, Hair Cree. But if you would include a link to that in the description, that would be a great help so people can find it.