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I'm John Bashar. This is CBSI in the world. Anna Borschewskaia is the author of the new

book, Putin's War in Syria, Russian foreign policy and the price of America's absence.

Russia is now engaged in, after 2013, the fall of 2013, in Syria. However, Anna presents

the three ways of Russian engagement that are quite distinct from how the Soviet Union

handled Afghanistan, even how Yeltsin's government handled the first and second

Chetchen Wars. The three phases will do as best we can, given Anna's deep reporting

here, military, domestic and diplomatic, military. And right away, you make the point that

the Kremlin's commitment in Syria is to keep Assad in power. Everything is focused on

that. Everything domestic reporting, everything diplomatic conversation, to keep him in power.

What did Mr. Putin and his counselors take from Afghanistan and Chetchen? That they immediately

applied to their Syrian intervention?

The first lesson of Afghanistan is that the Soviet Union relied largely on ground troops.

It was a major, major conventional troop presence. And if you look at how Russia handled

itself in Syria, they couldn't get away with zero boots on the ground. But really, this

was a primarily aerial, heavily aerial campaign with the naval component. And this put Russian

officers at much lower risk, so the lower risk in terms of getting hurt or killed. These

...