FATAL ATTRACTION: DAESH AND THE OBSESSION WITH KOBANE

Military campaigns fail for many reasons. Many factors can come into play. The inability to re-supply, inferior firepower, or simply an opponent’s superior tactical strategy. One reason that campaigns fail is however more psychological than military, it is when commanders and leaders become mesmerised by symbols, by the idea that the capture or annihilation of a particular place will somehow magically confer victory. This obsession can drive even great generals insane, as against all logic or practical strategic concerns they throw ever greater resources, particularly the lives of the men they command, into the capture or destruction of the symbolic objective.

For Napoleon the obsession was Moscow, the capture of which he thought would bring Russian defeat and victory for the Grand Army. The prize of Moscow dazzled him preventing him from seeing that whilst a Russian army still remained intact in the field Russia would never surrender. Not a mistake he would normally have made.

Hitler understood Napoleon’s mistake and sought to avoid it, directing his resources to crushing the Soviet army. However he too fell under the spell of a symbol, in this case the city of Stalingrad in the south-western Soviet Union.

On a strategic level the city offered an opportunity to close down traffic on the river Volga, - an important supply route- as well as destroy the industrial capacity of the city. It was also of course named after the Soviet leader and it is this that may have played a part in Hitler’s obsession and refusal to order a retreat when it had long became clear that the Wehrmacht was bleeding to death in the city.

Street Fighting in Stalingrad

 It was a turning point in World War II– the German forces never regained the initiative in the East after Stalingrad and had to withdraw a vast military force from the West to replace their losses.

Stalingrad is undoubtedly the most famous battle of the Second World War, the defeat a catastrophe for the German Army, and perhaps more fatally for German morale. Hitherto the Wehrmacht had been undefeated and had an aura of invincibility; after Stalingrad the Germans began their long retreat. With hindsight Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

Yet this catastrophic defeat was easily avoidable, had Hitler sanctioned a pull back from the city as his generals requested the outcome of the campaign could have been different. We have Hitler’s blind fanaticism to thank for the destruction of the German army.

Fanaticism of any kind, particularly religious fanaticism and rational military judgement are incompatible. Religious military fanatics are considerably more apt to be obsessed by symbols than their secular counterparts, religion itself representing an obsession with the symbolic.

So we come to Kobane, a Syrian town of some, though not pivotal, strategic importance. Lying along the border with, from a Daesh standpoint, a sympathetic Turkey, its capture, though not essential, would help to secure the north eastern Syrian sector.

Kobane Under Air Attack

When Daesh attacked the town they expected a quick victory, having become used to their enemies collapsing in terror at their approach. In taking on the Kurds, a people with a long history of fighting for their freedom, of fighting oppression and barbarism, Daesh suddenly found itself up against a much more formidable opponent than the demoralised Iraqi army, moreover in the Kurds they confronted a people not easily cowed by terror tactics. Instead of an easy victory Daesh found itself pinned down in bloody street fighting, taking increasingly heavy losses. 

Being a symbol cuts both ways, the longer Kobane has held out the greater importance it began to carry for the Kurds and their allies fighting Daesh. This in turn ratcheted up the importance of the town for Daesh, a deadly struggle set in.  

Resistance in Kobane

It is always difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when persisting in a military campaign that isn't yielding results crosses the line into folly and military catastrophe, but Daesh’s attempts to capture Kobane surely crossed that line sometime early in November.

Daesh have poured some of their most ruthless and effective fighters, particularly Chechens, into Kobane, only to see them buried under the rubble. These fighters along with a myriad amount of equipment lost, including tanks, are irreplaceable. In short Daesh is slowly bleeding to death in Kobane, losing fighters and resources it needs elsewhere.

The Cost of Defending Kobane

None of this would have been possible of course without the incredible courage of the Kurdish resistance in Kobane, particularly the YPG and YPJ self defence units. Indeed few things can have been calculated to destroy the morale of the deeply misogynist Daesh than being outfought by the female fighters of the YPJ.

Becoming a symbolic fighting ground is a curse that Kobane could have better done without, that said when the history of Daesh defeat is written, and as I have said elsewhere that I believe this defeat inevitable, the name Kobane will hold a very particular place. For the disastrous attempt to take Kobane has surely hastened Daesh’s defeat.