Thomas Wictor

The main reason I’m interested in the Middle East is that the region is in a period of the most dramatic change in its history—and those responsible for this metamorphosis have decided on improvement. There’s no question. The Middle East is in ascension.

I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist. Many Americans have decided that’s it’s too hard to be in ascension, so they’re choosing abasement. I don’t know if this rot is reversible. To be honest, I don’t care. I’m much closer to the end than to the beginning, and I have no close relatives who will suffer as a result of this decline. All the young people I know are happily embracing lives of trash.

It’s no secret that I’m not a supporter of President Obama. However, his election and reelection were inevitable. The US can easily survive two terms of a president who makes bad decisions. What we can’t survive is the collective will to discard all standards of behavior.

Today I received the first such e-mail of its kind. It was from a presidential candidate who shall remain nameless. This is how it ended.

For a true patriot, there is no other choice.

Now I’m unpatriotic if I disagree. Like almost everyone else in this election season, he dropped his mask. Fine. He can blame himself for the fact that I won’t vote for him under any circumstances. This should be his theme song, played at every rally.

Count me out, “friend.”

Ascension, not descent

While my country—or is it all of western culture?—gently sinks beneath the waves, the Middle East is where the most encouraging things are happening. I find it extremely grotesque that the giant, throbbing brains that prevented the Middle East from sorting itself out are now wagging their fingers, predicting calamity, and still telling Middle Easterners what to do.

Our ideas are bankrupt. Here’s an approach that’s working.

The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in the early 1980s…brought into the world the formula we know as C4ISR, where the four “Cs” stand for Command, Control, Communications & Computing. More recently, there are many who have accepted the notion according to which a fifth “C”, for cyber warfare, should be added to this formula—C5ISR. The “I” reflects the central role played by intelligence; the “S” reflects the importance of surveillance and the “R” stands for reconnaissance.

Thus far, special operations forces were committed to battle in order to support the primary maneuver [of conventional forces], fill gaps and execute strategic missions. According to the new concept, they will constitute the primary maneuvering element, bringing to bear many of the capabilities of the “standard” military, and even more.

Accordingly, the sixth “C” that should be added to the existing formula is the “C” that stands for Commando!

Hence, the appropriate forces for the operations of this generation are C6ISR forces.

In their present format, C6ISR forces do not possess the critical mass required for a ground maneuver – certainly not for methodical dismantling of the enemy. Their activity is normally characterized by a small signature, but the assumption according to which special forces mean small units is no longer valid.

Operational reality and the nature of the opponent call for a revision of the force build-up process in any modern military organization. What we need are larger formations of high-quality forces.

The author is Brigadier General Gal Hirsch (retired), former Deputy Commander of the IDF Depth Corps.

Depth Corps was created in 2011 to make Israeli special forces into a strategic asset.

Hirsch said above that C6ISR forces—strategic special forces—are not yet large enough to carry out a ground maneuver, the military term for a full-scale ground war.

Well, Hirsch is engaging in military deception (MILDEC). The Saudis have trained 150,000 C6ISR forces. I have no doubt.

Saudi Arabia has made a “final” decision to send ground troops into Syria to fight ISIS, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in Yemen told reporters on Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri said that Riyadh was “ready” to join the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition in Syria, according to Saudi news agency Al Arabiya. He noted, however, that the coalition — which has largely targeted the militants with airstrikes — has not given its final approval on the Saudis’ decision to send ground troops.

“We are representing Saudi’s [decision] only” in sending troops, Assiri said.

You should read that article. It’s hilarious in its obtuseness and hand wringing.

The Saudis won’t send significant numbers — they [sic] already stretched with an uphill and losing struggle in Yemen — and they won’t want to be on the front lines, as Saudi troops in Syria would be fighting and killing other Sunnis (and indeed other Saudi Sunnis). That would be unprecedented, and enormously unpopular.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, for his part, reportedly warned that foreign intervention in Syria could spark “a new world war.”

As an example of how off our rockers were are in the west, here’s the actual, unretouched photo accompanying that piece predicting no Saudi involvement in Syria AND a new world war in Syria.

Whoa! Like, far out, man!

Compared to today, that was a period of ascension for the west.

Real ascension is often done in secret

I’ve been studying troop movements and exercises for the past year. Here’s the military manpower available to the Arab League.

They have a pool of 120 million men. Why are idiotic westerners saying it would be impossible for Saudi Arabia to have trained 150,000 strategic special forces? The Saudis and Emiratis trained thousands of Yemeni soldiers as special operators, and these men stopped the Iranian mullahs in their tracks.

Senegal, Eritrea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei are also involved in the Saudi plans for Syria (and Iran, shhhhhhh), but several other nations are clearly taking part. I believe that Exercise Eager Lion 15 was a rehearsal for an attack on Iran. Last year’s annual exercise included several firsts.

It was the first time that B-52 strategic bombers were used.

It was also the first time that a single Coalition Forces Land and Maritime Component Command was created. This position was shared by a US Marine Major General and a Jordanian Brigadier General.

About 10,000 troops from eighteen nations attended, but there were planning officers from NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps as well. When we add up all the countries, here’s what we have.

Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mauritania, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

And China and Japan now have an extremely muscular military presence in Djibouti.

Here’s what you need to understand about geopolitics.

Ascension through combat

Every government on earth—with the exception of the US—would’ve sacrificed ten year’s worth of bribes and prostitutes to be part of the C6ISR forces that Saudi Arabia trained. This is an entirely new concept of warfare that will make a nation’s military exponentially more powerful. Eventually all ground troops will be C6ISR forces. The Israelis and Saudis created the first.

And even though President Obama is too risk averse to allow American ground troops to be involved, he’s helping in absolutely crucial ways. The new C6ISR forces were allowed to rehearse in the American Southwest, and the US has completely refrained from pressuring either Israel or Saudi Arabia as these two superpowers prepare to rid the Middle East of everything bad.

I posted this photo before.

It’s absolutely clear to me that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu don’t hate each other. Last night I found another unique image.

In eight years I’ve seen only two photos of President Obama looking at another person with genuine affection. In both cases, that person was Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president could easily have stopped everything that Israel and the Saudis are about to do. He didn’t. Not only that, he assisted in ways that no other president has. I think the final war of the Middle East is near; that’s why Israel is taking out Hamas attack tunnels. The IDF is shaping the battlefield.

Don’t be afraid. The sun is about to come out. And it’ll shine forever.

Update

The Saudis continue to spread the C6ISR doctrine.

A major military drill prepared by Saudi Arabia is a clear message that any hostile action or intention in the region will be tackled decisively, experts have said.

Saudi media said that the war manoeuvres, code named Northern Thunder, would be held in the northern region of the kingdom and that several countries would join.

Brigadier Ahmad Asiri, the spokesperson for the Arab Coalition fighting to restore the rule of the internationally recognised government in Yemen, said that 21 countries would be participating in the Northern Thunder drill.

And this.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia plan to hold joint military drills, potentially fueling sectarian tensions along Sunni-Shiite lines in the Middle East.

Turkish diplomats say the military exercises will come as part of an understanding between Turkey and Saudi Arabia to “cooperate against common threats.”

“The planned exercises do not particularly aim at any specific target,” said one senior diplomat in Ankara.