Roadmap to Victory: Defeating the Islamic State

The factors which make Islamic State relatively straightforward to contain geographically are the same ones which make it nearly impossible to drive them from the lands they currently occupy. The group relies upon the often irreconcilable divisions between their enemies in order to survive, these divisions allow them to face each of their enemies  on the ground in turn. I would suggest that the nightmare scenario for ISIS commanders, many of whom are experienced military men, is a war on multiple fronts. IS puts little stock in static defence, probably based on the assumption that to spread it's forces thinly along its borders would invite disaster. They realise that, in the words of Frederick the Great, "he who defends everything, defends nothing". It also tells us that the likelihood is that their army isn't nearly as large as some commentators suggest, they do not have experienced troops to spare for defensive action. Instead their strategy is to lightly defend their external borders. Using very small numbers of troops, suicide bombers and booby traps to harass and slow down their enemies. Importantly they do not attempt to blunt their attacks by fighting significant defensive actions. Again, they are probably right to do so. They likely judge that defending territory, even urban areas, in the face of Coalition air power is ill advised at best and suicidal at worst. Any fight where ISIS forces become pinned in place by enemy ground troops for more than a few days will likely result in disproportionate losses for the Islamic State, as the full weight of Coalition air power is brought to bear. We saw this happen when IS conducted protracted offensive action around Kobane. The experience of heavy losses in that battle: ~2000 fighters killed, an unknown number injured and 18 tanks destroyed, likely shaped their current mode of conducting operations. Their commanders understand that pushing against enemy strength, along a single axis, in order to seize an objective won't work. Instead they attack where their enemies are weakest. Short sharp offensives that take (or retake) ground at a low cost in the lives to their base of experienced fighters. By always holding the initiative, and an element of surprise, they continue to dictate the terms of the ground war; even when their enemies are on the offensive.

While the group is committed to a strategy of continued offensive action, which keeps their enemies off balance and prevents them from gathering the forces for a decisive thrust into the Islamic State itself, it has not been able to repeat it's initial rapid advances. This is almost certainly because they are constrained, like all the other warring factions, by their inability to operate effectively outside areas populated by their own ethno-religious group. It's probable that one reason for their initial gains in Iraq was Islamic State's ability to exploit the human landscape in Sunni majority areas far more effectively than their opponents in the Shia dominated Iraqi army. This factor makes them far easier to contain territorially, because the same factor which enabled them to expand so quickly into the Sunni parts of Iraq now works against them when they try to advance into Shia or Kurdish majority areas. Containing the group in Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria has drawbacks though. In order to maintain the appearance of continuous offensive success they have begun parallel strategies of terror attacks on the West and the establishment of franchises outside their main territory.

There are several important things we can infer from their behaviour, which will be essential in formulating a strategy to defeat them militarily.

1. Contrary to their own narrative they are acutely aware that they cannot sustain heavy casualties. This has led them to avoid protracted offensive action and to all but abandon the defensive as a viable option.

2. Their veteran field army is vital to their strategy, as it enables them to conduct effective offensive action. This prevents their enemies from concentrating enough force along a few axies of attack to seriously threaten their territory.

3. Their inability to make headway in non Sunni areas, south towards majority Shia Baghdad and North into Kurdish territory, is a product of the same forces which prevent Kurdish or Shia dominated Iraqi forces from making headway in the opposite direction. All the forces present in Iraq lack the ability to project their military power into areas controlled by different religious and ethnic groups, ISIS included.

4. ISIS rely on the divisions throughout the region and beyond it for their survival against conventional military intervention with ground forces. ISIS leaders likely know that the US will continue to veto Turkish intervention on the basis that it will likely be directed as much against their Kurdish allies as against IS. Many of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia seem content to watch as Assad's Iranian ally is drawn ever deeper into the Syrian quagmire. Of course it goes without saying that Assad and the Free Syrian Army will continue to battle one another far more intensely than ISIS.

5. Containing IS is likely pushing the group to adopt a new strategy, which includes acts of international terrorism and spreading franchise groups, in order to maintain the appearance of effective offensive action.

The ISIS field army is at the core of their strategy of continuous offensive action.

With these deductions in mind, what would an effective strategy for defeating ISIS look like? Any such action would have to start with the premise of destroying, or so badly damaging, their field army that they cease to be capable of conducting meaningful offensive or counter offensive action. This is far easier said than done, Western troops would not be able to achieve this. The leadership of IS will undoubtedly have prepared contingencies for the introduction of conventional forces by a major military power. Their reaction would probably be to immediately disperse their forces and adopt a purely guerilla strategy of protracted resistance. This is unappealing because it makes the wholesale destruction of their trained manpower base a near impossibility over any acceptable time span. In order to be drawn into a conventional battle IS commanders must believe that they stand a reasonable chance of success. This means the main ground component will have to be drawn from at least one, but likely more, of the factions currently fighting on the ground.

The fight to destroy IS' army cannot be a defensive action on the part of their enemies, so long as IS hold the initiative they remain free to break off costly offensive action and refocus their efforts elsewhere. Their army needs to be drawn into a battle they patently do not wish to fight, a protracted static defensive action, where coalition air power can be fully brought to bear against them. IS will not be forced to commit to such an action easily. It would probably require a land force threatening one of their major centers of power, Raqqa or Mosul, in order to force them to commit to a static defensive action in a single location. Their leaders will almost certainly understand the difficulty of assaulting a city filled with determined defenders and calculate that they stand a reasonable chance of success. In an action against dug in ISIS forces holding a major city, coalition members must set aside many of their reservations about conducting strikes in urban areas. Civilians will die and IS may seek to keep as many of them in place as possible, to limit the effectiveness of air power by exploiting the squeamishness of Western populations when it comes to unintended collateral damage. Embedding forward air controllers with trustworthy local forces such as the Peshmerga would be one way to reduce civilian casualties and increase the effectiveness of coalition air strikes.

We must seek to turn one of these cities and it's surrounding areas into a "Stalingrad" for ISIS, pushing them to the point where they commit totally to a symbolic battle  in which their army can be irreparably damaged; by inflicting severe losses on their base of experienced fighters. If IS refuse to deviate from their existing strategy, instead opting to avoid defensive action altogether, then they will lose control of one of their major power centers effectively without a fight. That would be a major propaganda coup for their enemies and deprive them of a substantial portion of their economic base and manpower pool. Putting ISIS between a rock and a hard place in this manner can be no bad thing, but I would expect there to be a good chance of them standing and fighting in place. To avoid such a battle would utterly shatter their aura of invincibility.

Of the two options Raqqa is by far the less attractive target. Situated deep within ISIS held territory in Syria, it would probably require a united Syrian force to successfully threaten it and then force IS into a defensive battle. Seeing as there is no real prospect of such a force existing in the near future, Raqqa must be discounted as currently unfeasible. That leaves us with only one real option: Mosul.

Mosul, surrounded on three sides in the Northeast by Kurdish forces.

Recent Kurdish operations have been focused on the corridor linking ISIS held territory in Eastern Syria to it's Iraqi stronghold in Mosul, with the town of Sinjar falling to a joint YPG/PKK and Peshmerga offensive aided by Yezidi militias earlier this month. In accordance with IS' current strategy, the area was not seriously contested, with estimates of around 700 fighters facing off against over 7,500 Kurdish troops. Even the Kurdish threat to and eventual capture of the logistically important Highway 47 did not force IS to commit it's main strength to the battle. As I've previously outlined I believe that IS will only commit itself to a defensive battle if one of their two major population centers are threatened.

The next question which requires addressing is do the Kurdish forces have the will and the capability to conduct such an operation? Clearly convincing the Kurds to engage their forces in a bloody urban battle of attrition, outside their own territory, will be a significant task. In this respect the West at least has it's track record of long standing friendship and co-operation to build upon. ISIS control of Mosul also presents a clear threat to Kurdish territory, acting as their primary base of operations in Northern Iraq. Kurdish leaders and commanders likely understand that sooner or later Mosul will have to be retaken, although their current hopes are probably that such a significant task could be left to the better equipped Iraqi Army to deal with at a later date. However, the now Shia dominated Iraqi Army has repeatedly displayed a profound unwillingness to advance into Sunni majority areas. It's front line is also ~180km further from Mosul than the Kurds, any advance towards Mosul on the part of the Iraqi Army would have to take a lot of time clearing the surrounding areas of resistance. This sort of action would also likely provoke a major attack from ISIS elsewhere, potentially in Anbar province, as they did earlier this year in order to preemptively blunt a similar northward offensive. An advance by the Iraqi Army would therefore be most likely to succeed if it were to fall after ISIS had committed their main strength to Mosul, removing the potential for a major offensive elsewhere. Convincing the Kurds to undertake a major offensive against Mosul would be difficult, but not impossible as part of a multi front offensive involving the Iraqi security forces.

More important than the Kurds willingness to conduct an offensive against Mosul is their military capacity to do so. If they lack the necessary military resources to undertake an operation of this scale and complexity then the plan is a non-starter.

Estimates on the military resources ISIS commands range from the CIA's conservative 2014 estimate of 31,000 fighters to the Kurds own claims of a force 200,000 strong. More recent reports from 2015 suggest that IS can call upon a force in the region of 40,000 fighters, although it is unclear what proportion of these are tied to garrison and rear echelon duties. Western troops usually require a ratio of 3-1 support to combat troops, but let us err on the side of caution and suggest that the ratio for ISIS is far lower. For the purpose of this exercise I will assume that a third of their troops would be unavailable or unsuitable for combat duties, meaning they can muster 2 combat troops for every fighter engaged in supporting activities. This gives them an estimated total strength of around 25,000 fighters. Their heavy equipment varies wildly in quality and age but IS is thought to have around 170 tanks, 150 armoured personnel carriers and a few hundred armoured cars. These numbers must come with the caveat that they are old, likely out of date, and certainly far higher than the strength they could actually deploy.

The estimated number of troops available to the Peshmerga varies wildly, ranging from 80,000 and 200,000. Accurate figures are difficult to come by but a conservative estimate would be that they command around 120,000 troops with a much greater proportion dedicated to rear echelon and garrison duties than IS. For the sake of argument let's say the Peshmerga can field one fighter for every two supporting troops.  This would produce a theoretical force of ~40,000 front line combat troops. The YPG and other allied militias could provide a few thousand more, but their equipment and is generally insufficient for much beyond the guerrilla or light infantry duties at which they admittedly excel.

While the raw numbers, although sketchy, suggest that the "Kurdish forces" do have a numerical advantage over IS; the numbers alone hide a range of issues that prevent the Kurds from putting such a force in the field. Firstly the political divisions within the Peshmerga are a major stumbling block, the 36 brigades are all independently controlled and many are aligned with the PUK, KDP and KRG factions. Although there have been efforts to unite these forces under a single unified command to fight IS, progress has so far been slow. Similarly, these politically divided brigades often struggle to cooperate with one another. Heavy equipment is another area where the Peshmerga has weaknesses. They actually do possess a sizable number of armoured vehicles and heavy artillery pieces, mostly ex - soviet, seized from the Ba'athist army's stockpile during the 2003 Iraq war. In total the Peshmerga have over 500 tanks and around 200 armoured personnel carriers. The lack of spare parts and ammunition, however, prevents most of it from being made available for front line use. Another problem is that, for the size of their forces, their logistical support structures are woefully inadequate. Conducting protracted offensive action will absolutely require a far more robust and effective logistics network backing it up.

Kurdish T-55 tanks: available in numbers but lacking vital spare parts 

Several of the highlighted areas of weakness can be remedied with outside help. Russia's recent commitment to directly combating IS makes the task of sourcing spares and ammunition for much of the Peshmerga's heavy equipment a more straightforward exercise. If the Russians refuse to cooperate then all of the required parts and ammunition are still readily available on the international market, but accessible only to state buyers. The US Army has over 30,000 M939 utility trucks currently set for disposal, transferring a portion of these to the Kurdish forces would go a long way towards solving some of their logistical problems. Importantly both these solutions avoid arming the Kurds with modern equipment that would allow them to challenge Iraqi government forces at a later date, supplies of ammunition and spare parts could easily be cut off after the conflict, to limit their potential for armed secession.

The politicised nature of many of the Peshmerga brigades, and lack of a unified command structure, are far more intractable but not insurmountable problems. Significant but slow progress has been made towards a unified Peshmerga command structure, a series of defeats and blunders fighting IS has made it clear that a more unified effort will be necessary to successfully combat ISIS. I would advise that if the Kurdish regional government manages to implement a functional unified command structure then the West should equip them with the spare parts and ammunition they need to deploy their existing heavy equipment and take the fight to IS around Mosul. If it is made clear that supplies will only come once the Kurds implement a workable unified command it could give the initiative the impetus it needs to be put into place.

The Peshmerga would very likely have an overall and local numerical advantage over IS, especially considering that the Islamist group would be taking an enormous risk if it concentrated a very large portion of it's strength on the defence of Mosul. As Operation Free Sinjar has demonstrated, the Kurds do seem able to concentrate the large forces necessary to execute complex urban assault operations. A battle for control of Mosul would be on an entirely different scale however, without their heavy equipment and a unified command it would be an enormously risky and costly undertaking; even with the Iraqi Army moving up from the south. It does, however, remain the best possible chance for anti-IS forces to inflict irreparable attrition to their trained fighters and prestige.

In summary, IS is militarily easy to contain. The difficulty lies in dislodging them from the territory they hold because of their strategy of harassment rather than static defence and continuous offensive action directed against their enemies weakest points. Despite this, I believe their commanders are acutely aware that their strategy would collapse if they were to lose enough of the trained field army to prevent their offensive action from being successful. This cannot simply be achieved by blunting their offensives, leaving them free to withdraw at will and attack elsewhere. In order to inflict the necessary damage they must be forced into conducting a static defensive battle that they do not wish to fight. The only way of doing this, in the author's opinion, is by seriously threatening one of their two major centers of power: Mosul or Raqqa. As there are currently no forces on the ground capable of conducting an offensive towards Raqqa, Mosul is left as the only realistic option open to us. While the Iraqi army is the better equipped force, they will remain unable to concentrate the force to advance northwards with IS threatening their flank in Anbar province. It will therefore have to be the geographically closer Kurdish forces which initiate the battle and begin the process of drawing IS reserves into the city before the Iraqis can advance, certain that those reserves couldn't be employed for offensive action against their Western flank. In the meantime the West needs to help the Kurdish forces build the logistical support structures necessary for them to conduct protracted offensive. The West must also seriously encourage the establishment of a functional unified command, possibly using the delivery of spare parts and ammunition for their existing heavy weapons as an incentive to do so.

Defeating IS is a matter of making their current military strategy for Iraq and Syria unworkable. This can only be achieved by forcing them to fight a battle that will result in the fatal degradation of their fighting power. I believe an attack on Mosul, coordinated in the manner I have laid out, could achieve this without the need for large Western conventional forces.

Paris: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

At around 8:30 PM GMT yesterday, Friday the 13th of November 2015, explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium in Paris. An hour later a Cambodian restaurant in the centre of the city was attacked by gunmen and soon after that hundreds of people were taken hostage in the Bataclan theatre nearby. At around 10:30 French counter-terrorist police appear to have stormed the theatre, at this point the gunmen seem to have detonated explosive suicide vests. At 1:40 the police reported that they believed all the gunmen had been killed. At the moment the death toll stands at over 120, with reports of another hundred in critical condition and an unknown number of people injured. In some circles this is already being called "France's 9/11", the deadliest attack on French soil since the Second World War. What began yesterday and ended in the early hours of this morning now seems to be over.

Today the people of France, and the Western world grieves together, for the friends and loved ones killed in the attack. In the coming days some will inevitably level criticism at the French security services for failing to prevent the attack. For what its worth I would personally like to thank them for their efforts. All it takes is a single incident to slip through the net and the hundreds foiled in the past count for naught. Ultimately blame must always be laid at the feet of the perpetrators. ISIS have claimed the attack as a response to French military action against their squalid fascistic "state", and it's probably that French police will confirm this in time. Today is not about them though, today is about pausing to remember the victims and their loved ones.

What will happen tomorrow, and in the days ahead remains to be seen. What these attacks have made brutally clear is that we have been sleepwalking in our war against ISIS, an enemy that is as remorseless as any of the totalitarian regimes we have faced in the past. President Hollande has promised that France's response will be pitiless, that the attack was an act of war. When the dust clears and the celebrations in Raqqa end ISIS will realise that by attacking the West "all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

ISIS do not fear us because they do not understand us: they mistake our compassion for weakness, our slowness to anger for a lack of resolve. As wars past have repeatedly demonstrated, there is simply nothing as terrible as the Cold fury of a democracy roused to action. The West now grieves for the dead and prays for those that might still live.

As for ISIS and the people that perpetrated this crime: there's a storm coming, the likes of which you cannot imagine.

The EU Refugee Crisis: All Quiet on the Libyan Front?

As part of a growing series on the root causes of the EU Refugee crisis, and how the West could move to restore stability to the Mediterranean basin, today's article will take a look at the current situation in Libya.

Since the 2011 NATO intervention the situation on the ground in Libya has deteriorated significantly. The internationally recognised government, based in Tripoli, struggled to exert its authority in the wake of the Gaddafi regime's collapse. Faced with a weak central authority the country slowly began devolving into regionalism, based on tribal loyalties. By 2014 the ruling General National Congress (GNC), elected in the wake of the first civil war, was becoming increasingly unpopular. Amongst other things it was criticised for being dominated by the minority Islamist faction, directly and indirectly supporting Islamist groups and attempting to impose policies in line with strict Islamic legal practice against the wishes of the Libyan people. The political crisis finally came to a head in the winter of 2013-14, with the GNC unilaterally voting to extend their mandate for a further year. Their refusal to stand down at the end of the mandated governing period was met by protests and demands for the establishment of a new elected governing body with popular legitimacy. On the 14th of February 2014 General Haftar, the overall commander of the Libyan Army at the time, appeared in a televised address and ordered the dissolution of the GNC. Elections would be held for a ruling council of deputies, and the running of the country would be conducted in the interim by a "caretaker government".

As expected the GNC refused to comply with General Haftar's ultimatum, accusing him of an attempted military coup. The first fighting, in what can be described as the Second Libyan Civil War, broke out in mid May when the forces of the Libyan Army under General Haftar attacked the bases of several Islamist groups in Benghazi. A day later more forces loyal to the General forcibly dissolved and suspended the GNC parliament in Tripoli. In the following weeks much of the Libyan armed forces sided with General Haftar and a number of large pro-security forces protests were held, denouncing the GNC's support for the militias, seen by many of the protesters as destabilising the country. Elections were held soon after the military's move against the GNC, resulting in a landslide for the anti-Islamists and the formation of a new ruling Parliament. Although the turnout was low, at only 18%, due to the ongoing violence the result has been internationally recognised. The defeated Islamist political factions, mostly grouped around the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, reorganised themselves as the New General National Congress (NGNC) and declared the election illegitimate.

July of 2014 saw major moves by Islamist militias to capture Benghazi and Tripoli and substantially intensified fighting between Government and Islamist forces. By September the situation in the capital had deteriorated to such an extent that the national parliament was moved to Tobruk, conducting it's activities from a requisitioned Greek car ferry, the Elyros. October saw Islamist militias in control of Derna swear allegiance to ISIS' Islamic Caliphate. During the following three months the skirmishes, air strikes and bombings continued, some targeting the country's oil infrastructure.

A diplomatic breakthrough was reached in January of 2015, with the UN support mission in Libya (UNSMIL) helping to bring about a negotiated ceasefire and talks between the NGNC and Government factions. Since the ceasefire fighting has continued between Government forces and ISIS, who have expanded their control over the area around the city of Sirte and carried out terror attacks in the capital. In early March General Haftar was re-appointed as head of the Libyan Army by the national Parliament and Government forces conducted an offensive against the ISIS-held town of Derna, in an attempt to drive the militants out. Later that month Ansar al-Sharia, one of the major Libyan Islamist militias, also declared allegiance to ISIS. General Haftar also announced that Benghazi would be retaken from the Islamist militias.

The process of de-escalation between the Government and NGNC has continued apace, with an increasing number of local peace agreements coming into force. Interestingly, in August the people of Sirte revolted against ISIS rule, the ensuing reprisals killed 38 and the group was forced to threaten the use of poison gas against the population if attacks on their forces did not cease.

The Second Libyan Civil War, Mid August 2015. Government Forces (Red),
NGNC (Green), ISIS (Grey), Local Forces (Blue), Tribal Militias (Yellow).

What is surprising is the degree to which the situation on the ground in Libya has markedly improved this year, and how this improvement has been largely overshadowed by the war in Syria and the escalating Refugee crisis. Until recently the majority of refugees were being moved to Europe by sea, with people traffickers based in Libya providing boats to make the crossing to Italy. Despite the relative reduction in importance of the Libyan route, as tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have begun moving through the Balkans, the Mediterranean crossing still remains the second most popular route into Europe. Many of the refugees using the Libyan route have been displaced by conflicts in Africa, such as the ongoing conflicts in Nigeria and Eritrea, rather than the Middle East.

As the country has slowly been moving towards a peaceful settlement, the long-term result of which will likely be a far more stable North Africa better able to deal with migration and the people traffickers who exploit refugees fleeing conflict, it is vital that the West now give greater support the UN peace process. In the near future we will need to make a substantial investment in the future of that country, in the form of development aid, technical expertise, equipment and training for their security forces. The Libyan government and people have avoided sliding into the kind of serious sectarian violence that would have seen their country join the ranks of a handful of other failed states in Africa. They have done much of the heavy lifting and compromising necessary to begin bringing their country back together but we, in Europe, need to give them the tools to finish the job. If sustaining and building upon the ceasefire agreements requires the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force then we should support such a proposal with finance, logistics and military means if necessary.

Where the West can certainly help is with defeating the ISIS affiliated militias in control of the area around Sirte. Both the NGNC and Government have agreed that ISIS constitutes a common enemy, and both have focused substantial portions of their military effort, since the ceasefire, on attacking areas held by ISIS. Libya's lack of strategic depth, almost all of the population live along the coast, means naval artillery could be brought to bear, along with air strikes and commando raids in support of local ground forces. Striking a decisive blow against the Libyan branch of ISIS would do much to break that organisation's aura of invincibility, such a victory would be a propaganda coup for the West and Anti-ISIS forces in a battle where image is vital. Removing the "third force" from the Libyan internal conflict could also be used as a means of helping unify the country again, turning all forces against a common foe as part of a long-term peace process managed by the UN. It also seems that, unlike in Iraq, ISIS' presence in Libya is resented to by the local populations they control which greatly simplifies the problem.

The UK RFTG on exercise with partner navies in 2015

It just so happens that the UK has a near-ideal force to conduct the operations I have suggested, in support of the Libyan people currently occupied by ISIS militias. The Royal Navy's Response Force Task Group (RFTG) contains all the naval, rotary-wing and amphibious commando forces necessary, while air bases in Southern Italy could be used to conduct air strikes, as they were in 2011. A small military commitment and a short sharp intervention, co-ordinated closely with local forces, would be all that would be necessary to wrest control of the Sirte area from the estimated 5,000 ISIS militia members that currently occupy it. Rather than try to attack ISIS directly where they are the strongest, in Syria and Iraq, by striking and rapidly eliminating their "emirate" in Libya the UK could help further the ongoing Libyan peace process and win an important propaganda victory against ISIS' image of invincibility. In doing so we would make their cause less attractive and possibly hasten them to take rash and uncalculated action on their central fronts in the Middle East, in order to shore up their image.

Of all the places where a Western intervention could succeed against ISIS, Libya is by far the place where such action would result in the greatest good at the lowest cost in lives. We would be honoring the commitment we made to the Libyan people in 2011 and investing in a plan that would result in a more stable, pro-Western and democratic North Africa in the long-term. The great strength of the UK's modern armed forces is our ability to strike at our enemies' weaknesses with great accuracy, delivering a quick rapier thrust rather than a series of crushing sledgehammer blows. Now is our opportunity to strike at ISIS' weakness in North Africa, to cut out the cancer before it has the chance to spread and do more damage to a state still shakily finding its feet again.

The EU Refugee crisis and the Syrian Civil War: a solution wrapped in a problem

Firstly I'd like to apologise because obviously this article is not the planned piece on Afghanistan, but this week's events have really resonated with me and I think that something needs to be said about how we deal with the refugee crisis currently engulfing Europe. Don't worry though, the article on Afghanistan is in the pipeline. That said, let's take a look at the current state of Syria.

The country has been engulfed in a grinding civil war since July 2011, protests against the depredations and misrule of the Assad government earlier that year spilled over into an insurgency that has steadily grown into the full blown civil war. Over the course of the following four years four more or less distinct actors have emerged.
   The Assad government still commands formidable military resources, and controls most of the South and West of the country, as well as the entire Mediterranean coast, The ports of Latakia and Tartus remain its critical lifeline to their main supplier of arms and equipment: Russia.
   The other major faction is ISIS, in control of most of the North Western half of the country. Their fighters are often able to offset their disadvantage in heavy equipment with an innovative style of fighting which combines conventional maneuver warfare with guerrilla tactics such as the use of mines and IEDs. From what we know from Iraq they also seem to be led by highly experienced people, some ex-Iraqi Ba'athist officers from the Saddam era included.
   On the peripheries of the country sit the remnants of the Free Syrian Army, who hold enclaves in the West of the country the largest of which is in the far North West along the border with Turkey. The FSA is by now an eclectic mix of democrats, communists, anti-ISIS jihadist movements and more. They do have a good number of experienced military personnel, mostly defectors from Assad's Army, and some western backing and equipment. Unlike ISIS the FSA has to rely mainly on guerrilla tactics and raiding, as it lacks the equipment and training to take on ISIS or the Assad government in conventional fighting. They also share an important alliance with the government of"West Kurdistan".
   The Kurds occupy two enclaves in the far North East and North West of the country, along the Turkish border. While the Kurdish armed forces are likely some of the most coherent in the conflict, their unity is based on a strong ethno-nationalist identity that seems to have broadly transcended political differences during this conflict. The socialist YPG or "people's protection" militia command the Kurdish military effort in Syria. Their fighters tend to be less experienced and trained than their ISIS counterparts, although the leadership has considerable military experience from the on-off guerrilla conflict waged against the Turkish and Assad governments. Despite this their fighters have proven steadfast when placed in good defensive terrain and given adequate support by Western air forces, inflicting an important reverse on ISIS at the border town of Kobane in late 2014.

Areas occupied by: Assad's forces (Red), ISIS (Grey), the FSA (Green) and the Kurds (Yellow)

The military situation on the ground seems to have become a stalemate, with the two major factions unable to make real progress against one another and the smaller factions reduced to defensive and guerrilla operations. The war, if it continues as it has until this point, looks set to grind on for years and destroy much of the country's infrastructure in its course.
   According to the UN High Commission for Refugees the conflict has officially displaced just over 4,013,000 people as of July 2015 (although the real number is likely higher). To put this into perspective the Syrian population in 2011 was just under 22,000,000, between a fifth and a quarter of the total population are now refugees in other countries. This doesn't include the estimated 6,500,000 internally displaced people. The largest refugee populations are in the countries nearest Syria, with 3/4 (3 million) of the refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Of the remaining 1/4 many have made their way to Europe via North Africa. Deciding how to manage these people has thrown the EU into crisis and proven to be politically divisive across the continent. Germany's preferred solution, a migrant quota system managed by the EU, proved unacceptable in the latest Brussels Summit. Since then the response has been largely deadlocked at the EU level and national governments have started taking measures of their own, such as Hungary's construction of a border fence.

Throughout all of this Britain has played a reasonably quiet but important role, contributing the second largest aid package after the United States (worth some £900 million) to improving the refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon as well as mitigating the effects of the conflict in Syria itself. However, the UK has come under intense recent criticism from some quarters, especially in Germany, for its refusal to accept greater numbers of refugees. This is especially important to the Germans, considering that Chancellor Merkel is predicting that they could see an influx of up to 800,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Syria, by the year's end. Crisis appears to be piling upon crisis, producing movement of people on a scale not seen since the Second World War. What has been missed is that Britain has been saying the right thing about the refugee crisis from the start: treating the symptoms by taking in refugees is no solution compared with treating the cause by bringing peace and stability back to Syria. While this is far easier said than done it is the correct position. The war in Syria is out of control, and now the crisis is sat staring at the White cliffs of Dover. We can no longer afford to remain a passive observer.

This may be where you could expect me to launch into a polemic on the necessity for Western intervention, as I suggested would be the right course of action in Iraq. But Syria is not Iraq and the solution to this problem is sitting right in front of our collective noses: the refugees themselves. Within the Syrian diaspora is all the manpower, leadership potential and technical skills necessary to retake and rebuild that country. What they need is housing, organising and equipping. I'm not just talking about recruiting and training a new Syrian Army from the refugee population (although this will be essential), but also creating a government, judiciary, medical services, brigades of people responsible for reconstruction of key infrastructure and a light paramilitary force capable of basic law enforcement. We would need to generate all the institutions necessary for the administration of a medium sized state, some as a nucleus to be built upon and some as fully formed services, before re-introducing them to the country as the leading force in an international intervention.

We have 1/4 to 1/5 of the country's total population sat in camps outside of Syria or displaced to Europe. By some predictions at the end of this year there will be over a million Syrians in Europe. If we in the West can tap into the sheer human potential of this body of people, give them purpose and help them retake and rebuild their country there really are few limits to what we could achieve.
  Let me be clear, this would not be taking in refugees because it looks like a good humanitarian thing to do. We would be pursuing a hard-nosed political and military strategy designed to further our interests in the region: removal of Russian influence from Syria by overthrowing Assad (something we're already committed to), the installation of a popular and democratic pro-Western regime in Damascus, the defeat of ISIS in Syria and the restoration of stability to the Eastern Mediterranean which would allow refugees to begin returning to Syria.

A sea of untapped human potential

This wouldn't be cheap or easy, the construction of a competent new Syrian army, to be trained and equipped to Western standards, alone would take years and cost billions. That said, by the debates over equipping the FSA and the dispatch of training missions to aid Iraqi forces the West seems comfortable with training and equipping local forces to do its fighting. What I'm suggesting is that we do this on a vast scale, dividing the effort across Europe and the United States. This is hardly a new experience for the West either, the UK and US (and NATO nations in Afghanistan) have built essentially new armed forces from scratch in the past in far more difficult conditions. If we can muster the will and leadership we could do it again.

Earlier I stated that the crisis was "producing movement of people on a scale not seen since the Second World War". Well maybe we should look to the free forces of WW2 for inspiration, drawn from refugee populations and the shattered remnants of armies from all over Europe. Britain took them in, trained them to modern standards and armed them with US equipment before they symbolically led the liberation and rebuilding of their countries alongside the Allies. Maybe General David Richards was right when he said that the UK "must go onto a war footing" to defeat ISIS. The only real solution is for the Syrian people to liberate their own country from the tyrants and terrorists who have taken control of it. If we in the West enable them to do this, by turning the refugee population into the basis of a new Syrian state, then we may just achieve a truly great liberal intervention. So yes, we should accept more Syrian refugees into the UK, but as part of a concerted effort to put an end to the Syrian Civil War and ultimately rebuild that country.

Killing people and breaking things: dealing with the Islamic State

In June of 2014 the previously obscure Islamist militia known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stormed over the Syrian border, into Western Iraq and onto the TV screens of millions of people around the world. Their initial blitzkrieg offensive culminated on the 29th of that month, with the proclamation of a caliphate by their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the group renaming itself simply 'Islamic State'. A further offensive in August, directed against Kurdish territory to the West of Mosul, trapped thousands of Yazidi refugees atop Mount Sinjar and brought the first concerted Western intervention in the developing conflict. Since then the front lines have largely stabilised, with back and forth fighting mainly on the roads leading North and West out of Baghdad and in the area between Mosul and the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil. Neither Iraqi government or Islamic State forces have been able to break the deadlock thus far, both lacking the military capability to do so. The slightly better led and motivated Kurds seem unlikely to advance far outside their own territory.

Broadly speaking the Iraqi Army has been poorly led and motivated, suffering especially badly in the face of mass desertions during the initial offensives of 2014. Its real strength though is the constant supply of US arms and equipment it can count upon. In comparison IS has appeared thus far to be well led and motivated, with its command structure built around a core of experienced ex-Iraqi Baathist officers and highly motivated Jihadist fighters. Their lack of a steady supply of arms, and likely inability to maintain the heavy equipment captured in Mosul and Syria over anything more than the short-term, may however prove to be their Achilles heel. If the war remains a drawn out attritional affair then it seems unlikely that IS will survive in the long-term. The Iraqi government forces will slowly improve as the pressures of war weed out the incompetent leaders, and protracted combat experience hardens their previously green troops. For IS though, a prolonged conflict almost certainly spells eventual defeat. Casualties amongst their mid and low level officers will prove increasingly difficult to replace with leaders of the same quality and skill. Once the group loses its tactical advantage, afforded to them by competent battlefield leaders, it will start losing. The higher ups will be unable to impose greater central control to counteract the effects of this attrition, because of the limits placed on electronic communication by Coalition signals intelligence aircraft. If they decide to lead from the front they too will be exposing themselves to injury or death.

It seems then that the current US strategy of 'degrading' IS will eventually prove successful and result in the defeat of the group. However, while their logic is sound the consequences of a victory won by slow grinding pressure on IS in Iraq will likely prove catastrophic for the people of Western Iraq and the region. As IS is slowly ground down it will inevitably press ever more of the population it controls into military service. We have seen what this sort of victory looks like before, a country of old women and young children living amidst the rubble of towns and cities leveled by fighting. Even with the enormous Marshal aid programme it took Germany more than thirty years to rebuild much of its infrastructure and, make no mistake, there will be no such comprehensive programme for the reconstruction of Iraq. This doesn't even begin to address the even greater numbers of people that will be displaced as the Iraqi army drives IS back street by street, adding to the more than 4 million people already displaced by the wars against IS. A vast swathe of the Iraqi state will effectively be reduced to prolonged and extreme poverty and hardship. This could very well breed the next generation of jihadist fighters to throw Iraqi state into another prolonged conflict it can ill afford.
In human terms alone this is a victory that Iraq and the West cannot afford to win, especially if blame for the current conflict continues to be laid at the foot of the US and UK for initiating the 2003 invasion.

Iraq's future is Syria's present if the current strategy of slow attrition is maintained

The involvement of regional powers is not a real solution to the problems Iraq faces either. As we have seen with Turkey's recent involvement in the conflict, directing most of its bombing against the Kurds rather than IS, most of the region's powers have ulterior motives or too much at stake to risk involvement. The conflict is likely already another outlet for the Middle Eastern Cold War between the major Sunni and Shia powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Of all the regional powers Egypt and Jordan would seem best suited as allies in the fight against IS, but like all things in that area of the world once action is taken things tend to become very complicated indeed. Some commentators, Malcom Rifkind among them, have suggested alignment with President Assad's beleaguered regime under the idea that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Despite evidence that suggests that the Baathist regime has engaged in a truce with IS, so that both sides can focus on destroying what remains of the Free Syrian Army. Russia can play the game of supporting President Assad's 'lesser evil' but the West has come too far, by supporting the FSA and threatening to bomb the regime over the use of chemical weapons, to go down this path now.

So what is Britain currently doing to combat IS? Operation Shader is the UK's tri-service military effort in Iraq, led by the efforts of the RAF's 903rd Expeditionary Air Wing flying out of the Akrotiri air base on Cyprus. The ten MQ-9A Reaper drones, eight Tornado GR4s and Tomahawk-armed nuclear powered submarine form the sum total of the UK's striking forces currently in the region. The range of intelligence gathering assets deployed is certainly the key British contribution to the bombing campaign. The two Sentry AEW, and four assorted Shadow, Sentinel and Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft, as well as special forces teams on the ground provide a robust array of assets that enable the use of coalition air power. This is especially important for the smaller European and regional coalition members who tend to possess strike aircraft but lack the support and intelligence gathering assets necessary for effective targeting. Alongside these striking forces are two battalions from the Yorkshire and the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiments, stationed in Iraq to provide training to the Iraqi Army and Kurdish forces.

The current level of commitment and military engagement by the UK is commensurate with the requirements of the current US-led attrition strategy. Small numbers of combat aircraft, flying missions principally directed against the logistical and command structure of IS, will succeed in the slow degradation of the combat capabilities of IS. However, as previously discussed, the current attritional strategy is destined to produce disastrous results for the areas of Iraq occupied by IS. If the current coalition strategy of slow attrition and building up the Iraqi Army is destined to result in a Pyrrhic victory that will be catastrophic for Iraq, and likely continue to propagate instability within the country and in the wider region. What I would suggest is that Britain argues the case for a different strategy altogether. Intervention on the ground and a 'counter blitzkrieg'.

Warrior fighting vehicles of the Welsh Guards advance towards Basra in 2003

To call this option controversial is a gross understatement, for Britain and the United States the scars of the 2003 war are still uncomfortably fresh. Even the phrase 'boots on the ground' has become politically toxic and shifting public opinion on the issue will take time, concerted effort and critically honesty on the part of Western political leaders. There can be no 'dodgy dossiers' this time, no lying to the public. Yet, in spite of the very significant political problems, it is what must be done if we are to avoid incalculable damage to the Iraqi state and regional stability.

So how would a Western ground war against IS prove less damaging to the country than the current Iraqi-led ground war? Firstly, the speed that Western armed forces can move and fight at would almost certainly take IS by surprise. Their role would be to conduct the 'blitzkrieg', small powerful armored formations that drive deep into IS held territory, disrupt logistics, sow confusion and ferment panic amongst disoriented and isolated troops. The aim would be to keep the amount of fighting that takes place in built up areas to a minimum, engaging always with overwhelming force but only when absolutely necessary. Following this Western advanced guard would be the Iraqi Army, who would be tasked with reducing the significant pockets of IS forces that had been cut off by the armored spearheads and garrisoning liberated areas. Speed, logistical damage and the rapid capture of enemy territory would substitute for the current strategy of slow attrition. As for an exit strategy, we already have one - continue to build up the Iraqi Army as an inclusive national force with Sunni elements capable of securing their own communities in tandem with local actors, as per the Anbar Awakening of 2006. Some Western troops would have to remain to secure the Syrian border and block further IS incursions, but a large scale 2003 style occupation would be unnecessary. I make no suggestion that Western troops will not be killed if we choose to conduct this sort of operation, but the sacrifice of a few will save the lives of countless Iraqis, who would otherwise be pressed into military service by IS or have their homes destroyed by prolonged back and forth urban fighting. If we are truly humanitarians, concerned with the fate of the Iraqi people, then this is the only option available to us.

If we do this, and do it properly then maybe, just maybe, we can put the ghosts of the last war to bed. For good this time.