NOVANEWS
Degrading Bashar’s Air Power Is Possible
A brief summary: three Naval surface ships, and 100 aircraft, launching air to ground to ship to ground missiles and never entering Syrian airspace, could very seriously degrade the regime’s air power.
Here is McCain’s summary:
“Specifically, the ISW study reports that Assad’s forces are only flying a maximum of 100 operational strike aircraft at present, an estimate that ISW concedes is likely very generous to the Assad regime. The real figure, they maintain, is more likely around 50. What’s more, these aircraft are only being flown out of 6 primary airfields, with an additional 12 secondary airfields playing a supporting role. What this means is that the real-world military problem of how to significantly degrade Assad’s air power is very manageable – again, as I and others have maintained.
“ISW calculates that U.S. and allied forces could significantly degrade Assad’s air power using stand-off weapons that would not require one of our pilots to enter Syrian airspace or confront one Syrian air defense system. With a limited number of these precision strikes against each of the Assad’s eight primary airfields, we could crater their runways, destroy their fuel and maintenance capabilities, knock out key command and control, and destroy a significant portion of their aircraft on the ground. The ISW study estimates that this limited intervention could be achieved in one day and would involve a total of 3 Navy surface ships and 24 strike aircraft, each deploying a limited number of precision guided munitions – all fired from outside of Syria, without ever confronting Syrian air defenses.”It would be useful for both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to review the ISW study and to ask the Pentagon to respond to it. For if the United States does not act, Iran’s gamble in sending an expeditionary force to Syria will have paid off–with extremely dangerous effects in the entire region.
[ed notes:satire> come on people ,lets agitate already ,make noize,and bang the next us war for israhell drum and please the Zionist war criminals who been calling for Assads fall since even befroe conflict began….whos with Israhell on this?backround on study of war…Founded in 2007, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that has supported long-term U.S. military intervention abroad, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of December 2011, ISW did not publicize on its website the members of its board of directors. However, according to 2008 tax documents, the organization has had five board members: Elizabeth Cheney (chair), daughter of Vice President Richard Cheney and founder of the right-wing advocacy group Keep America Safe; William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative flagship magazine theWeekly Standard;Jack Keane, a retired four-star general who coauthored with Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute“Choosing Victory,” a 2007 study that served as a blueprint for the so-called “surge” in Iraq; and Dennis Showalter, a military historian. ISW’s founding president is Kimberly Kagan, a historian who is married to Frederick Kagan.[2]
