The deployment of Russian military forces to Syria is a major geostrategic inflection.
Its significance goes far beyond the situation in Syria. It may well herald, in fact, a new era in global geopolitics and security.
Russian forces are establishing an airbase likely to become capable of conducting operations throughout the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean.
It would be the first time in history that Russia had an outpost on land for projecting force beyond the confines of the Black Sea. The U.S. and NATO must consider and respond to this development recognizing its true stakes.
The Obama Administration remains inexplicably bewildered, however.
Secretary of State John Kerry stated on 22 September that the Russian equipment that had arrived in Syria was there to protect Russian forces. “We don’t yet have clarity with respect to the Russian effort,” he noted in a press conference.
After Kerry’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 27 September, the State Department stated: “Again, we’re just at the beginning of trying to understand what the Russians’ intentions are in Syria, in Iraq, and to try to see if there are mutually beneficial ways forward here.”
Understanding the Kremlin’s intentions at a basic level is not really very hard, though. Russian President Vladimir Putin certainly means to deter the U.S.-led coalition from attacking the forces of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, establishing any sort of no-fly zone, or taking any meaningful action that might harm Assad’s forces.