Putin’s Syria Gambit

By Rob Dannenberg

Rob Dannenberg served as chief of operations for CIA's Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and chief of the Information Operations Center before retiring from the Agency.  He served as managing director and head of the Office of Global Security for Goldman Sachs, and as director of International Security Affairs at BP.  He is now an independent consultant on geopolitical and security risk.

There has been no shortage of speculation about the motives behind Russia’s recent military deployment to Syria following the September 28 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.

Most of the commentary, however, has failed to identify the underlying objectives behind Russia’s Syrian gambit: Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower, Russia’s intent to fill the power vacuum in the Middle East, and Putin’s desire to demonstrate to the Russian people that Moscow can project military power abroad in the War on Terror (as the other superpower, the United States had done 15 years earlier in Afghanistan).

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