Hugo Spaulding, writing in the Institute for the Study of War [1] notes that Vladimir Putin is challenging president Obama across a very broad strategic front. This is quite a contrast to the media perception that their confrontation is limited largely to Syria. He writes:
Russia's Syrian campaign is part of larger confrontation with the U.S. and NATO. In addition to expanding the scope of its operations to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Russia issued an open challenge to NATO through repeated violations of Turkish airspace, the shadowing of U.S. Predator drones in Syria, and the launch of cruise missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea through Iraqi airspace without warning the U.S. beforehand.
Russia accelerated its effÂÂorts to court U.S. allies including Jordan and Israel ... bolstered its military presence near Afghanistan ... announcing the deployment of attack helicopters to neighboring Tajikistan. In a snap ministerial meeting on October 8, NATO agreed to double the size of its Response Force and announced its preparedness to deploy ground forces to defend Turkey ... Russia's escalated support to Syrian regime operations against rebels and Jabhat al Nusra in Syria show that Russia's main objective in the Middle East is not the anti-ISIS ‑fight, but rather the formation of a Russian-Iranian alignment that will serve its broader aims.
In the mind of Russians, NATO was at war with Russia since 1998 (the rape of Serbia) |
