Brian M Downing and the world at war. Timely, thoughtful, and nonpartisan analysis of military matters. @BrianMDowning1.
Brian M Downing Sunnis ruled Iraq since the country’s creation after World War I. That state of affairs was overturned, unjustly and unwisely in their view, in 2003 when Saddam Hussein was ousted and a Shia majority came to power shortly thereafter. Though composing only about 16% of the population, Read More …
Brian M Downing The air war over Germany in WWII lasted five years and its effectiveness is debated to this day. Nonetheless, after five weeks of airstrikes, many analysts and politicians are already judging the air campaign against the Islamist State to be a failure. This may be in large Read More …
Brian M Downing The Syrian government has won the upper hand on the ground owing to Hisbollah ground troops, his own airpower, and the failure of most rebel groups to develop into skilled fighting forces. Rebel groups are in considerable disarray and fighting each other fiercely in several parts of Read More …
Brian M Downing The Obama administration is reluctantly upping its involvement in the Syrian civil war. Though the White House offers few details, reports indicate that American personnel will arm and train teams of rebel fighters on Jordanian territory, then send them across the border to fight the Assad government. Read More …
Brian M Downing The Assad government, having lost control of large swathes of the country and deemed near collapse only a few months ago, has put together a surprising counteroffensive. The operation seeks to reestablish the ground route between the capital Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, where the regime’s Alawi Read More …
Brian M Downing The Syrian civil war has raged for over a year now, ever since peaceful protest turned into armed rebellion. In recent months, rebel groups have become more effective and various armed units have emerged. They have little in common beside opposition to the Assad regime, and their Read More …
Brian M Downing Recent fighting in Damascus and Aleppo has differed markedly from that of only a couple of months ago when the regular army swiftly defeated rebel enclaves in Homs, Idlib, and Deraa. Fighting in Damascus has persisted for several weeks now and while it trails off at times, Read More …
Brian M Downing The violence in Syria has gone up markedly in the past two weeks, with massacres in at least two Sunni villages and sharp skirmishes between government forces and the rebel opposition in several cities. The United Nations has had to suspend its monitoring inside the country. The Read More …
Brian M Downing A new chapter in the Syrian resurrection is opening in the form of a wave of bombings. It comes on the heels of the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) failure to mount a significant defense of key cities and the outside powers’ indecision as to what to do Read More …
Brian M Downing For over two weeks now, Syrian troops have surrounded Homs, a city of about a million people not far from the northern border with Lebanon. President Bashir Assad’s troops are firing indiscriminately into the hapless town, entering parts of it, and preparing a full assault to crush Read More …