Putin meets his defence chiefs, Russia prepares response to US Syrian missile strike - 0 views
theduran.com/sia-response-us-missile-strike
war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria missile-strikes Russia-response
![](/images/link.gif)
-
Yesterday, within hours of the US missile attack on Syria’s Sharyat air base, President Putin met with Russia’s Security Council to discuss the US attack.
-
There has been some speculation in the West that the US missile strike on Syria will lead to a reappraisal of Russian policy and will give the US more leverage in negotiations over Syria with the Russians. The Kremlin’s summary of the discussion at Russia’s Security Council suggests that nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do the Russians qualify the US attack as “aggression and a violation of international law”. The words “the meeting also considered various issues related to the Russian Aerospace Forces’ continuing operation to support counterterrorism operations by the Syrian armed forces” suggest that far from planning a pull-back the Russians are intent on escalation. The very first step the Russians took after the Security Council meeting – and which was undoubtedly ordered by it – the closure of the hotline between the US and Russian militaries in Syria – suggests the same thing. The reason for that decision by the way is that the Russians almost certainly feel that the US used information provided by the Russians through the hotline to determine where Russian military personnel are posted in Syria. In that way the US was able to strike at Sharyat air base knowing there were either no or very few Russian personnel there. The Russians would see no reason to ‘help’ the US carry out more air or missile strikes on Syria by providing them with that sort of information in future, and they have now taken the necessary steps to ensure that that information is no longer provided.
-
Another decision which we know that the Security Council took was to take measures to beef up Syria’s air defence forces. The Russian military has already announced that this is what is going to happen, and over the next few weeks steps to that effect will start to be taken. The fundamental mistake Western pundits who press for military escalation by the West in Syria repeatedly make is that they consistently underestimate the other side’s resolve. Ever since the start of the Syrian conflict every move the Western powers and their Gulf and Turkish allies have made in their campaign to overthrow President Assad’s government has been at least matched by an equivalent and often stronger counter-move, whether taken by the Syrians or by the Syrians’ Russian and Iranian allies. Those who know the history of the Vietnam war will be familiar with this pattern, and with the Western blindness which leads to it. In the decades since the Vietnam war ended nothing in that respect seems to have changed.