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Harder it gets. there is a question about how long they can sustain the size of occupation. where as if ukraine can stay in the fight, logistics, convoys, bypassing some of the major combat formations, the longer they stay in the fight, the more weapons to get from the west, the more reserves get trained up and civilians, and the more the sanctions bite on the russian war machine. there is a space and time dimension going on as with all conflicts. ., ., , ., ~ conflicts. how well do you think the ukraine defences conflicts. how well do you think the ukraine defences are conflicts. how well do you think the ukraine defences are holding - conflicts. how well do you think the ukraine defences are holding up? it is difficult to tell. it is really interesting as an analyst on this, we get one picture, the ukrainian information security around the disposition of their forces and their defence has been really tight. all we are seeing as they are destroying russian tanks. it is very hard ....
There s really no other word for it, in combat, risky missions. carol? the president said earlier when he spoke in paris that the problem was a lack of intelligence on the ground and that s why the united states isn t conducting more air strikes over syria. i think that s right. what they are looking for is that fine, granular intelligence, on a given day if you have aircraft flying over raqqah, syria, where are the civilians? where is the isis leadership? where are the isis weapons? if you re flying over iraq and you see vehicles on the road, do you know if those are isis fighters coming into iraq from syria? do you know if they re civilians on the run? and the only way you can really know this is to have those eyes and ears on the ground. it s been an inhibiting factor. look, this is going to be a small number of special operations forces to start with. we re not talking about large combat formations, but i don t ....
So to speak. not sitting on bays in iraq. they will be out there. they will be on the front lines. and many, barbara, look at this and they wonder if this is going to lead to even more expanded deployments. what is your sense there? well, the pentagon has been holding pretty firm that special operations, small, mobile, covert, lethal, is they feel the way to go for u.s. troops. there is a lot of opposition even within the mainly within the pentagon, i should say. not looking at large combat formations, as we ve seen over the last 14 years. not looking at battalions, brigad brigades, you know, tanks, bradley fighting vehicles. not looking at the very traditional large combat formations, but looking at this small, lethality capability that special operations can bring. but very risky, very dangerous. we saw just several weeks ago the first u.s. special ....
Debates. while the strategy is the right strategy, it just needs to be set up. i think it does need to be sped up and intensified. i think while isis is a long-term problem for us, we have near-term issues associated with it. all you have to do is look at the downing of the russian airliner and the attacks in paris and the attacks in beirut and so on. so we have a near term problem that needs to be addressed or a near-term challenge from isis that needs to be addressed but when i hear people talk about a completely different strategy, i don t know what that is. putting tens of thousands of u.s. troops in there is not a near-term solution. it would take months and months, even if you decided you wanted to do it, to put the logistics in place, get the troops trained and so on and i m not sure they don t aggravate the problem. you re not going to have combat formations coming out of raqqah wearing isis uniforms to confront american troops. they re going to melt into a population of seve ....
They are trying to accomplish. what their goals are. as i said. most of these countries have another agenda. the saudis are worried about iran, the turks more about the kurds and so on. but they re both united in the fact that assad has to go before you can make progress against isis. i think we need to listen to them if we want them to be active and aggressive members of the coalition. but the reality the you hear people talk about sending combat formations from arab nations into iraq to fight isis, that s just not going to happen. first they are not going to send their troops, not willing to send their troops but second the iraqis probably wouldn t allow them to come anyway. you ve gotten a iranian influenced government in baghdad and the notion that they would invite saudi or gulf state troops into their country to fight what is an internal fight in their eyes i think is very ....