Deconfliction Talks News Today

The challenge for Western policymakers is to avoid viewing Russian activism in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa through an exclusively zero-sum lens. The region’s political disarray, complexities, and especially the unpredictability of local rulers all present built-in buffers to Russian influence—as they do to all external players.

I think putins objective is nothing less than to have russia replace the united states in the middle east. this has been a russian objective for centuries. hes taking advantage of the presidents weakness. at this point, i dont think anything that stands in putins way. >> ambassador john bolton, thanks so much for being with us this evening. with me now colonel david hunt. what harm can come from letting putin take on this fight in syria? we certainly arent willing to take it on. >> it solidifi...

Meanwhile, the u.s.-led coalition has been scrambling to catch up with these russian moves and to find some way to salvage their strategy in syria amidst changing facts on the ground. the deconfliction talks after one round seemed not to have prevented things today. very simply, the u.s. does not know what it will do in response to the russian moves, and their lowest common demnominator of avoiding crash is on shaky ground. >> thats the problem. with that specific incident, were hearing the u.s....

Mark hurtling. welcome, general. >> good morning, carol. >> general, what do you make of this? >> not unanticipated, frankly. i mean, i think anyone whos in the military who has conducted campaigns and operations expected this to happen. even though the diplomacy and the talks back and forth has said -- russia has said they are going against isis, they are an ally of assad. he is the reigning government in syria, and legally he can invite the russians in to do whatever they want. so i did not an...

Were in an effort to prop up assad, not to fight isis. a lot of consternation about this because it was just yesterday that defense secretary ash carter let it be known that he was beginning to set up mechanisms, procedures to talk to the russians, military to military, about how to deac deconflict operations in the skies over syria. the worry, of course, is russian warplanes flying, u.s. warplanes flying. nobody wants to see an incident. nobody wants to see anybody get shot down inadvertently b...

U.s. military. they simply do not feel they can believe what the russians say. thats the big worry right now. because as another official said to me, look. our two presidents, putin and obama, just earlier this week said that both militaries would sit down and talk about how to operate safely in the skies over syria. defense secretary ash carter was beginning to set up that -- those talks from the u.s. military side, reach out to the russians, and see how to best proceed with those so-called dec...

We have informed russia that we are prepared to hold the deconfliction talks as early as possible, this week, but let me be clear the united states and the coalition will continue our ongoing air operations as we have from the very beginning. we have conducted a number of strikes against isil targets in syria over the past 24 hours, including just an hour ago. these strikes will continue. let me be clear. the coalition that we have built more than 60 countries strong has been taking on isil for ...