Leaden sky of Syria

“I’m not going to start a third world war because of the Yugoslavs,” said British General Michael Jackson in 1999 when he received an order from NATO commander-in-chief Wesley Clark to “knock the Russians out” of the airport in Pristina, the capital of the now partially recognized Republic of Kosovo. Now one can only guess whether Russian generals and their American colleagues, who are about to start a confrontation in Syrian airspace, will have the same common sense.

The Russian military department reacted extremely nervously to the fact that on June 18, an American fighter shot down a Syrian Air Force aircraft for the first time in the entire conflict in Syria. According to the headquarters of the international coalition, this happened after the attack of the Syrian Su-22 on the positions of the Washington-backed detachments of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDS). Moscow immediately announced that it was ending cooperation with the United States under a memorandum signed in 2015 to prevent possible incidents in Syrian airspace. Moreover, the Russian military department stated menacingly: “In the areas of combat missions carried out by Russian aviation in the sky of Syria, any air objects, including aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles of the international coalition, detected west of the Euphrates River, will be accepted for escort by Russian ground and air defense systems as air goals."

In fact, we are talking about establishing a no-fly zone over a significant part of Syrian territory. If the aircraft's equipment detects that someone's radar is "guiding" it, then the pilot must act "according to the situation", including shooting to kill. For "escort ... as an air target", if translated from military language into everyday language, is comparable to what you see as someone points a gun at you.

The very next day after Moscow's demarche, the Americans shot down a Syrian drone, according to media reports. Thus, a very risky game of nerves begins in the skies over Syria. A random incident can result in unpredictable consequences. After all, when the USSR and the USA clashed in Korea and Vietnam, Soviet troops were there “unofficially”. And Washington preferred to turn a blind eye to this circumstance - after all, recognizing it would mean that the two nuclear powers were at war. Now Moscow never tires of stressing that its troops are in Syria legally. Therefore, the first combat clash will have to be interpreted as the beginning of the war.

However, in the United States they react quite calmly to Russian demarches. The coalition command reported that, just in case, they relocated their aircraft. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Danford, in turn, expressed the hope that the Russian-American communication channel would be restored. Apparently, he remembers that Russia has already once announced the suspension of the agreement - this happened after the United States launched a strike with Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Syrian army airbase in April. I note that at that time the Russian leadership had the sense not to try to shoot down the American Tomahawks. A month later, after a May 6 telephone conversation between Dunford and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the communication channel started working again.

A very risky game of nerves begins in the skies over Syria. A random incident can result in unpredictable consequences. When the USSR and the USA clashed in Korea and Vietnam, the Soviet troops were there "unofficially". Now Moscow never tires of stressing that its troops are in Syria legally. Therefore, the first combat clash will have to be interpreted as the beginning of the war

Thus, with its tough statements, the Russian Ministry of Defense successfully drives itself into a corner. For if threatening rhetoric is not followed by action, then the rhetoric itself devalues ​​rather quickly, turning into the "504th severe warning." If actions follow, and for every downed Assad plane there will now be a Russian response, then the intra-Syrian conflict can quickly develop into a Russian-American one, and then it will not seem enough to anyone.

The worst thing is that situations like the one that led to the conflict in Syria 5 years ago will now be repeated. Having inflicted a series of sensitive blows on ISIS* terrorists, the participants in the civil war in Syria have now returned to confrontation with each other, seeking to occupy strategically important territories and oil production areas. The attacks by the Assad regime on the SDF are an attempt to prevent the armed opposition from entering the Euphrates Valley after the fall of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of ISIS, which should happen in the coming weeks, if not days.

So, without noticing it, Moscow and Washington are drawn into the hostilities that their clients are starting. Tails with might and main are twisted by dogs.

* ISIS, ISIS, "Islamic State" is an organization banned in Russia as a terrorist organization.