Putin Declares Victory - Orders Russian Troops to Begin Leaving Syria

[Ad Orientem]

Well, it looks like at least one world leader understands how to end a war as well as start one.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/14/world ... index.html

[MWKXJ]

What leadership.  I believe it was the Spartan Agesilaus who said that fighting long wars is, in-effect, teaching one's enemies how to fight you.  Putin will likely been seen by posterity as one of the few strong Western leaders of this rotten era.

[MediumTex]

Putin wanted to put on a show of force for his domestic audience as well as the rest of the world.

Because he knew there was no real military objective for Russia, he was able to end the deployment without having achieved anything meaningful from a military perspective.

If it were possible for cynicism to be inspiring, I would be in awe of Putin.  He has done so much with so little, and been held accountable for virtually nothing.  He's truly a kleptocrat's kleptocrat.

There is a reptilian elegance to everything Putin does that must be inspiring to countless up-and-coming despots around the world.

[Ad Orientem]

Actually I think Putin had a real military objective. He wanted to shore up Russia's client state in the form of the Assad regime which was in serious danger at the time the intervention began. And to a large degree Russian air strikes have degraded the opposition forces to the point where any immediate threat to the regime has been neutralized.

[Kriegsspiel]

I'll bet his military loves him. They get to go in, kick some ass, then leave without doing the hard COIN stuff? Dreamy.

[MediumTex]

I'll bet his military loves him. They get to go in, kick some ass, then leave without doing the hard COIN stuff? Dreamy.

No doubt.

Russia has enough sense to avoid a long-term open-ended deployment. 

Putin is to thugocracy as George W. Bush is to dumbassery.

[MachineGhost]

What happened to all the ringtwing fear-mongering hyperbole about Putin starting World War III?  Reub?