"After 15 Months Of U.S. Air Strikes Is The Islamic State..." Topic

…Being "Hurt"?

"The U.S. Department of Defense sends another of the emails almost every day. They are lists of air and artillery strikes conducted by the U.S. and coalition forces, ISIS assets targeted, damage and destruction accomplished. On a recent Monday, the tally included 116 ISIS fuel trucks, 11 ISIS tactical units, one large ISIS tactical unit, seven ISIS fighting positions, seven ISIS buildings, one ISIS storage depot, six ISIS vehicles, one ISIS tactical vehicle, one ISIS fighter (he was wounded, the Pentagon said), one ISIS staging area, one ISIS heavy machine gun, one ISIS homemade explosives cache, one ISIS weapons cache, and six ISIS command and control nodes.

The lists, taken on their own, can seem impressive. But they mask the fact that it's still not clear any of this is really accomplishing much.

"The airstrikes, in terms of limiting ISIS' capacity to make advancements in the area it controls, it's probably a C+ or a B-," says Christopher Swift, an adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University. "In terms of forcing ISIS to adapt to a less permissive environment it's probably been a D-."

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The US/NATO military forecast what the result (or lack of a result) of the bombing would be over a year ago, including what would happen when Russia inevitably joined in.

(Nostradamus seemed to forecast it too, according to one TV program I saw years ago.)

And now after recent events, johnny-come-lately experts and academics are popping up everywhere trying to tell us something we already knew.

A punch can hurt but a person can quite often takesrvetal punches and still win the fight. Watch a boxing or MMA fight.

Hindsight is easy. I think of the pounding air power gave the Ho Chi Min trail. Though the air strikes in the 1st Gulf War did accomplish their objective.
But from my limited knowledge suspect that ISIS is taking it more like the Vietnamese did versus the Iraqi Army did.

I can go on but I do not want to put our troops on the ground in another war.

The problem with the airstrikes is that there were too few and too many concerns about CD. Which is always a consideration, but sometimes you have to loosen up the ROE.

And of course, NO US/NATO troops should be on the ground save for some SF/intel types. Plus many doing all the training, and support. The ground fighting has to be done by locals, they have to take the fight to Daesh. But as we see only the Kurds show any tactical capabilities in doing that. Many of the rest in the region just don't seem to have or do what it takes. For a number of reasons …

NO More US/NATO troops need to die for this region. They appear not to be able to take care of themselves no matter how much training and equipping the US/West/NATO does for the various forces. We all know we can't win any conflict with just airstrikes. But if used in proper volume, accuracy and on time. It certainly is a Major combat multiplier … History shows us that …

(Nostradamus seemed to forecast it too, according to one TV program I saw years ago.)

Too bad he didn't give grid coordinates …

Yea, look at the number of sorties the NATO coalition flew per day over the Balkans.

Those over ISIS in the last 15 months or so by US forces are just a drop in the bucket compared to those, e.g. NATO flew more than 1,000 sorties per day at the very beginning of the Balkans campaign. In just a few days they flew more than the total number of missions the US has conducted that has dropped bombs, in 15 months of fighting (2,000+, or only about 25% of the sorties flown).

I also read that the ROE are so strict that most of the planes are returning to base with their ordinance.

I guess if the west started to simply drop bombs regardless of civilian deaths we would lose our moral high ground – after all civilian deaths is what makes us go and do the bombing right?

Yes, and no … we have to defeat Daesh to stop not only it's horror show in the Mid East, etc. … But to stop them from attacking the West on our own streets.

IMO, the ROE needs to be loosened up. But not to the point of anything close to WWII or Vietnam standards. That would be counter productive at some point. And wasteful of assets, etc., and in turn ineffective overall.
But regardless, until the locals really seriously take the fight to Daesh on the ground. The airstrikes will be very useful, but won't totally eliminate the Daesh threat to both the region and the West at home.

And no matter what … there will be CD at one level or another. However, for example, almost 1/4 to 1/3 of Syrians are refugees and not living in their own country. Which will make CD less, if for no other reason they are out of the combat zone.

Yep, 75% of them are just burning jetfuel, and logging flying hours.

…Being "Hurt"?

No