Through its fourth and fifth years, the Syrian Civil War (the colloquial name of the ongoing conflict in Syria) continued transforming from an uprising against the unaccountable, corrupt elite ruling from Damascus, into an all-out conflict of global proportions.
Since 2014, the fate of Syria has been decided by non-Syrians. Foremost between these are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, but other major foreign powers remain involved too - and each of parties in question has acted in pursuit of its own interests.
Emphasising its fascist-like ideology of insistence on elitist disgust towards any kind of opposition, and fully exploiting its monopoly on violence through its unchallenged air force, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad survived thanks to financing from Tehran and drowning the country in blood.
Continuous differences between their primary foreign backers - Saudi Arabia and Qatar - wreaked havoc between Syrian insurgents and resulted in their split into a myriad of factions and continuously changing alliances.
Together, this combination of internal and external enemies made a much-expected downfall of the Assad-Regime impossible. Abandoned and brutalized, the Syrian society as it used to be fell apart: while nearly 60% of the population fled their homes, its uprising found itself in the sinister shadow of the black banner carried by Jihadists of such al-Qaeda-linked groups like Jabhat an-Nusra and then the Islamic State.
Ironically, despite all the obsession with this phenomena, leading Western governments abandoned any semblance of reasonable analysis and embarked on `war on terror' masquerade. Ignoring clear evidence for Iran maintaining operational relations with al-Qeda since at least 1996, and leaving its fingerprints all over the formation of the Islamic State; ignoring clear evidence for open cooperation between the Assad-Regime and the Islamic State's predecessor - the al-Qaida of Iraq; and ignoring evidence of Iran-controlled Shi'a jihadists behaving at least as barbarically as Wahhabists, Western powers launched their own military campaign in support of the PKK - a left-wing terrorist group of Kurds from Turkey, and helped it impose imposed itself upon the population of most of northern Syria.
Against this background, the war in Syria of 2014 and 2015 became in many ways exemplary for modern-day warfare in the Middle East: technically a low-intensity conflict fought by proxies in interest of their foreign sponsors.
Discussing strategy, logistics, tactics, and experiences with different weapons systems, `Descent into Darkness' is detailing the pendulum of war between regime-forces and insurgents in 2014 and 2015; the impact of the IS upon insurgent operations; detailing major insurgent groups and growing influence of Jihadists upon them; the crumbling of regime forces in 2015, and thus the backgrounds of the Russian military intervention launched in the same year.
Illustrated by over 100 photographs, 10 maps and 15 colour profiles, `Descent into Darkness' offers a unique study of the military aspects of the Syrian Civil War in 2014 and 2015.
