Bigger Than Two Men and a Truck

While I've not been shy in speculating that Assad might try to retreat to a Core Syria to lower his security needs to match his security assets, I remain very aware that this is a map-reading exercise that doesn't go into the complexity of shrinking your country.

I remain aware because I still remember the effort by South Vietnam in the waning days of the war, when they lost our support and North Vietnam was invading, to "strategically withdraw" from the border areas of South Vietnam to defend a core South Vietnam in the southern part of the country.

Once the retreat began, troops became further demoralized and worried about family. And the whole thing collapsed.

Which is why I thought that Russian troops on the ground in Syria could be a morale booster for the Alawites and allies if they try to retreat to a Core Syria.

Yet despite the difficulties and uncertainties of pulling it off, Assad has to make a choice soon about doing something different or seeing his tired troops just collapse from the effort at playing whack-a-mole.

UPDATE: And remember that Syria can't rotate troops they way we did even when our rotation base was stressed. Syria's armed forces have already exceeded our maximum 15-month Army deployments during the surge.