_BataZiv_0809 wrote:General War wrote:Putin sees intervention in Syria as a way out of his current isolation
...Only 14% of respondents answered that Russia should provide direct military support to Assad regime (69% were against it), 43% for providing arms and consultations.
But people’s moods can be changed quite fast with a
help of state-controlled media – that is what we have seen in 2014-2015 in the Donbass conflict in eastern Ukraine. The war in Donbass has served its function and given way to talk about a new, distant “small victorious war” – but wars in faraway places can be different.
http://
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/putin-russia-attacks-syria-way-out-of-isolation
Ko o cemu
The optimists (and some cynics) among Western analysts and officials even welcome the Russian expedition in Syria and compare it to its inconclusive support for the separatists in Ukraine.
They argue that both are expensive (especially for a country in deep recession) and beyond Russia's capacity to win. Russia will end up weaker, not stronger. And eventually, they say, a post-Putin Russia will be more realistic about the use of military means to achieve Moscow's goals. 
In other words: "Let him get on with it, and he'll see how tough it is." This argument sees Russia already stuck with subsidizing eastern Ukraine, which would otherwise be bankrupt, and propping it up with bureaucrats drafted from Moscow. All the while, reforms introduced in Kiev, supervised by the International Monetary Fund and supported by the U.S. and European Union, will eventually put Ukraine back on its feet.
The optimistic argument continues that Putin can play the tough, decisive leader and "refuel" Russian patriotism, but can't make Russia's underlying rot go away. The oil price has collapsed, investment is at its lowest in two decades, and real incomes have declined 10% in the last year, according to the Russian Federal Statistics Service. Putin is more the magician than the strategist.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/05/world ... index.html
