Russia"s Syrian Policy

"See, the 1st thing is to, like, do no harm - right?"

The above mentioned mentionable is often heard in regards to dating, doctoring, playing doctor and diplopolititary interventions.

Like Syria.

As best understood, one of the caveating caveats 'bout chucking Syria's illegit Allawicious thuggocratic autocrazy led by the nearly 2 metre tall (wookie sized) Dr General President For Life Bashar al Assad on the same old wreck pile as Iraqi Ba"Athism, kamikazees and Waffen Ss -  is ye olde "sump much worse could get all raised up."

Like You Know Whatism and itists. 

In Syria, jihadists would be aided by logistical familiarity with the terrain and customs; at the beginning of summer, one is always struck by the throngs of young Saudi, Kuwaiti, and other Gulf males—usually the best regional recruiting pool for jihadists—patiently waiting for their passports to be stamped at Syrian overland border points


Jihadists have been managing and carrying out logistical operations in Syria for years, constructing networks of safe houses and figuring out which Syrian security officers can be bribed. While this know-how was devoted to sustaining the jihad in Iraq, it could easily be flipped towards a Syrian focus.

 Should the jihadists take over Syria, they would disrupt the strategic balance that Great Satan was trying to forge across the Middle East by giving the jihadists a base in the heart of the region, within striking distance of Little Satan.

If the jihadists are not a spent force, and if they choose to concentrate their efforts on Syria, then it stands to reason that the Syrian regime may face a very grave challenge to its survival.

Money shot

The idea that a security regime can tether down the wild beast of jihadism misses the technological, financial, and recruiting innovations that have freed jihadists to a large extent from their past reliance on state sponsors. This newfound confidence accentuates the unwillingness of the “vanguard” to submit to any master beyond its revolutionary passions.

"Slamists arguing for a jihad in Syria believe that they have hit the trifecta: In the Syrian regime, they have an enemy that is at once tyrannical, secular, and heretical.

Which trigger pulls the trigger on Commonwealth Russia"s love affair with Bashar Bay bee - the hot hook up stems from Mockba’s hot desire to get all enriched from selling weaponry to the regime and keep her naval base at Tartus, right?

Nyet Tovarisch!!

 These speculations are superficial and misguided. The real reason that Russia is resisting strong internat"al action against the Assad regime is that it fears the spread of you know what radicalism and the erosion of her superpower status in a world where Western nations are increasingly undertaking unilateral military interventions. 


Since 2005, Russian defense contracts with Syria have amounted to only about $5.5 billion — mostly to modernize Syria’s air force and air defenses. And although Syria had been making its scheduled payments in a fairly timely manner, many contracts were delayed by Russia for political reasons. A contract for four MiG-31E fighter planes was annulled altogether. And recently it became known that Russia had actually halted the planned delivery of S-300 mobile antiaircraft missile systems to Syria.


To put it plainly, arms sales to Syria today do not have any significance for Russia from either a commercial or a military-technological standpoint, and Syria isn’t an especially important partner in military-technological cooperation. 


The Russian Navy’s logistical support facility at Tartus is similarly unimportant. It essentially amounts to two floating moorings, a couple of warehouses, a barracks and a few buildings. On shore, there are no more than 50 seamen. It can’t serve as a support base for deploying naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea, and even visits by Russian military ships are carried out more for demonstrative purposes than out of any real need to replenish supplies.


In Moscow, secular authoritarian governments are seen as the sole realistic alternative to Islamic dominance.


The continuing struggles in Arab countries are seen as a battle by those who wear neckties against those who do not wear them. Russians have long suffered from terrorism and extremism at the hands of Islamists in the northern Caucasus, and they are therefore firmly on the side of those who wear neckties.

Pic - "Autocracies seek to make the world safe for other autocracies as well. Their so-called respect for other nations' sovereignty and policy of noninterference sits well with lesser dictatorships and they prefer to do biz w/each other"