Any thoughts on the effectiveness of the Aleppo campaign relative to the overall national strategy? Essential, or ancillary, successful or stagnant?
I must admit that, aside from the Kuweires objective, it's been quite perplexing, to me. The push to Kuweires resulted, temporarily, in a unilateral (northern-flank) salient into ISIL-held territory. Ultimately, this strategy was successful as the salient, though vulnerable, allowed sufficient force to push not only to, but also through the objective.
Conversely, southern Aleppo is not so clear. What was the strategic objective? Was it farmland? If so, kudos! If not, what then? Were it simply to have cut-off the M5/Hama - Aleppo connection, would not another focused salient push into Idlib along a either a western, WSW, WNW, NNW, or SSW axis have achieved this? Granted this would have created a bilateral salient that might have been much harder to defend than the unilateral salient of the Kuweires push, but it would have achieved the objective. So, said simply, what was the primary strategic objective, and what were the secondary and tertiary objectives of the Southwestern Aleppo campaign?
Its a very good question and not an easy one to answer.
I suspect very much that the key factor in all strategic decision making and tactical ability, will be the limited number of ground troops available and the relatively small number of Russian aircraft spearheading the Air Campaign. In short, they only have the numbers; both on the ground and in the Air, to be able to overwhelm the enemy along a very limited front and that this front is relocated, maybe based on opportunity or simply on a basis of advance and consolidate.
If nothing else, it will make best use of a greater degree of mobility and central command that the rebels simply do not have.
Currently the Latakia border campaign is clearly the top priority. I suspect this always was and while will try and paint this as Putin being forced to make a strategic error and reassigning his priorities, I just do not buy into it. The border campaign was not started by the Turkish shoot down of the SU-24, it had already started and the shoot down was the Turkish reaction to it. Whether Putin has increased the intensity of the prosecution is another question, but even here, if the answer is yes, then I suspect that this was a desired outcome.
Kuweires I see very much as a work in progress. The base is surely being fully rebuilt and being brought back into operational status as both an Airbase and as a Regional HQ. This will take time and may need completion before going further.
As for Southern Aleppo, I think it has achieved good results; maybe targeting specific groups and it appears being used to weaken the units actually inside the City of Aleppo itself.
This comes back to the two core objectives that I think Putin has for this stage.
1) Cut the supply lines from Turkey
2) Remove any potential civic centre capable of offering the role of Capital to a foreign backed protectorate.
I would also say that simply looking at territorial gain is misleading. Its not as if the rebels are just a series of check points on roads and in villages, each held by a squad or two and that after you defeat one, you just move on to the next. When the Syrian Army coalition attacks, the rebels have been clearly bringing fighter from miles away and throwing them into the fire fight.
If the South Aleppo campaign has relocated hundreds of rebel fighters from other areas, inflicted heavy casualties on them and failed to maintain key rebel supply lines open, I think it will be deemed a success.
