I'm John Bashar, this is CBSI in the world, Anna Borschewtskaya, 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.

Anna, 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

apply 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 camp component.

This put Russian officers at much lower risk in terms of getting hurt or killed.

These were also especially elite forces, rather than simply conscripts.

In other words, a special forces had gone into Syria, rather than conscripts that had

no choice but to go into Afghanistan with no training or frankly desire to be there.

...