Thats irrelevant. The Russians have one clear objective in this fight; getting the Syrian government’s authority and writ restored within the territory of Syria. Their plan to achieve that is to use their airforce to assist the Syrian Army to do that, a Army which they are also resupplying.
The Americans aim and strategy in Syria is (to put it kindly) muddled and can best be described as “ISIS bad, need an ass whooping”. They have been hitting them haphazardly in Iraq and Syria, without any realistic long term plan and it has shown, as ISIS has only grown stronger in the last few months.
So, yes I think that the Russians have a much better chance if success.
Of the two plans the Russian plan is better. Is it a good plan? IMO, no. Im not sure how it will succeed. Airstrikes arent going to defeat ISIL anymore than they defeated the Mujahadeen in the eighties…that was airstrikes and lots of troops on the ground.
How do you see the Russians succeeding? What am I missing?
Terrain is quite different. It’s a mostly urban society, unlike Afghanistan, ISIS has no outside support from a superpower and a major regional power like the Mujahideen had, and the troops are locals, rather then foreign.
I think Putin is about to cause his country a massive amount of grief. There is no “win” in the Middle East for interlopers no matter how well- or ill-intentioned.
Seems to me that there are numerous state and non-state actors in the region that would loooove nothing more than to help escalate the conflict between the US and Russia as much as possible. In fact, the success of such a plan might be the only realistic way for them to achieve their ultimate goals. And they have both home-court advantage and advantage of numbers.
Putin isn’t pushing anyone around. If anyone is getting pushed around, it’s the Syrian people by the Iranians and the Saudis. This has played out just like a standard Cold War-era proxy war, eventually the interested parties will figure out that they’re not going to get everything they want and they’ll come to terms. How much bargaining power Assad will have when that day comes is the main reason why Russia’s trying to help.
But seriously, if you really believe Putin sending a squadron of planes to some dilapidated old base is somehow a huge foreign policy coup for Russia and Obama just needs to do something!, then you’re a stupid meathead and your opinion is worthless, and you should shut up and quit burdening the message board with your low value musings.
The “dilapidated old base” sits snugly on the Eastern Med, and complicates NATO’s strategy in the region, it makes shipping lanes vulnerable for instance.
As for the foreign policy implications, it is the heaviest Russian push in the region since the 1970’s.
Um … say what now? Russia has not been using Syrian ports, they do not have ground access to them anyway except via Turkey or Iraq (ain’t happenin’, and if it did they wouldn’t need Syria), there are damn few Syrian ports anyway (really just one, and it’s small), and they just took back Sevastopol and all the other Crimean warm water ports.
So, where are you getting this idea from? A biography of Peter the Great?
Even those who can remember it, all too often. - Me