Tim Ripley

This was second book on the same subject that I read few days apart.

Unlike Tom Cooper's book that concentrated mostly on air-warfare segment of this conflict, Tim Ripley tries to give all-around picture of the Russian military operations in Syria.

But unlike Tom Cooper's work this book tries to look at the events from the outside and does not take sides. All the losses and misses and media promotions by Russia (including so called withdrawals) are presented. Together with more detailed information on status of Russian military which shows that there are things to improve on (substantially) including status of mainstay combat airplanes (as Tom Cooper also noted substantial number is from the 1970's/80's but unlike Cooper Ripley shows that Russians deployed new airplanes in relatively high numbers considering overall size of contingent), status and mishaps of Russian carrier group (complete breakdown of catapult system that forced navy planes to use ground bases) and coordination of various parts of the armed forces in the combined support operations.

It was weird to read about western forces not communicating with Russians directly but through allied militias (due to Ukraine situation) in order to reduce friendly fire casualties and losses and coordinate actions (although coordinated actions always ended up as a race to achieve end-goals before the other party). And it was also weird that western powers weren't/aren't that interested in Syria per se - if they are interested in something it might be resources near border with Turkey and Iraq (and not to mention constant infighting and complete inconsistency when it comes to warring parties - Turkey and FSA fighting US supported Kurdish forces and Syrian rebels aligned with US-backed opposition fighting the Turkey-sponsored troops but also between each other.... A mess). This lack of interest was felt by both Assad and his opposition - with Russia's support Assad forces managed to rebuild and push the rebels on all fronts.

It is interesting to watch Russian troops evolve and progress in time with more and more complex scenarios and combined operations and corresponding introduction of more specialized and advanced weapon and support systems on the battlefield.

While in general this book expands the theater of operations from beyond air-warfare to submarine actions, strikes from battleships and long range bombers, ground troops (and logistics) and introduction of more advanced concepts like UAVs etc main value is introduction of context (or at least context guessing frame-work) for Russian involvement in the war. From entire military engagement it seems that Russia's goal is to be seen as someone who brings stability and helps her allies (in this case Assad).

It is very interesting that Russians even when losing planes to western forces never reciprocated in the same way - almost every time revenge strike was targeting the Syrian militias allied with the west. Also while media did critique the Russians when it comes to fighting ISIS if one checks the myriad of forces and ever-changing allegiances in the area only logical solution is to advance one front at the time - especially with very low quality Assad regime's army and militia forces. Also fighting with ISIS brought Russia in very close contact with US backed militias (and US military on ground) fighting against the same enemy that Russians deemed too risky in case of any friendly fire incident so they left it as to-be-done when other parts of rebellion were defeated.

Also well presented are ground operations of Russian troops - be it in adviser, recon or direct action role (e.g. artillery operations).

What is the ultimate goal of Russia remains to be seen but it seems that majority of press and media guessing is more based on self-reflection and expecting outcomes as in Iraq and Libya which again had more to do with the western powers than with anyone else. This is something that only future will show.

Only thing that detracts one star from full 5-star mark are typos and spelling errors. But considering that book must have been self-published level of these errors was not too big (big enough though to annoy me to deduct one star).

Recommended to all interested on reading about modern militaries and conflicts.… (altro)