This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 10th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What does Russia get out of its support for Bashir al-Assad in Syria?

Does the Trump administration have any strategy in place

after lobbying bombs at Syria?

Emma Ashford, research fellow at the Cato Institute,

explains.

Russia's been supporting the Assad regime for some time now. They supported them even before they intervened militarily in Syria.

That was over a year ago at this point.

The Russians have some strategic interests in Syria.

They have a military base there on the Mediterranean that they don't want to lose.

They would probably lose if the Assad regime

ended up out of power.

More importantly, these days, however, the Russians have really staked their reputation on the survival

of the Assad regime.

And so for them, it's really important

for their image in the world that the Assad regime not fall

and that the U.S. not sort of take Assad out of contention.

Is there some larger strategic reason why Assad should be in

charge in Syria versus someone else or some sort of power vacuum? Well so the Russians

much like us have an interest in not seeing a power vacuum in Syria.

The Russians hate ISIS as much as we do.

...